I am very please to officially announce my latest venture, TriathlonAnswers.com. Those of you paying attention have noticed the change in my blog side bar to include the Triathlon Answers logo and link through to the site, but now it’s official — we are live!
This project is something new for the tri-space. The website is run as an open-source space for questions and answers. While I moderate the space, anyone is free to post. The software ranks answers, helping to promote a “best” possible answer while recognizing those who give good answers with unique badges and other incentives. I am hoping that this will grow to help the other 95% of triathletes, the ones who don’t belong to forums, but spend most of their time on Google just searching for answers to their triathlon issues.
You Can Help
I’d sure love it if you helped out. You can head over there now (www.triathlonanswers.com) and either ask a question or answer one. Maybe you can send it on to a friend? Maybe you can post it to your friends or triathlon team? The more questions we have, the better it will become…plain and simple.
Here is an excerpt from the “About” page of the site to explain in more detail…or you can just head over there now. Thanks again and I hope you help to grow TA into a great resource!
~ Patrick
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In the future, a triathlete with a question will sit down at their computer, type their question into Google, and be blown away. They’ll discover someone else has already asked it, and that other triathletes and coaches have ranked the answers by helpfulness. They don’t have to sign in to see the answer, or even to ask a follow up question or leave an answer of their own. Drop. Dead. Simple.
That is the vision. We invite you to help make it a reality.
Triathletes have tons of questions. You are managing three different sports, and chances are at least one of them is entirely new to you. Uncertain of how to proceed / improve, you turn to the web only to find more information than you ever thought possible, with most of it entirely anecdotal. You can read books, join a team, surf online forums, sign up for newsletters…the options are endless.
Everyone in the tri-space is brimming with useful advice but you’ll soon discover that if you ask ten people you’ll probably get ten different answers. Without a doubt, the best answers and most helpful advice comes from other athletes just like you. These are people who have experienced the same setbacks, used the same gear and come from the same place. With the right connections you can quickly learn what is, and isn’t, the best direction for you to go in regards to your training, equipment, race selection and more.
There is a large amount of reading material available but it’s frequently out-of-date or one-sided. Books and online newsletters seem to speak with authority, but they rarely reference where they got their information, and sometimes you wonder if the author(s) has ever done a triathlon. While there are tons of triathlon forums available online, simple questions can easily lead to off-topic rants and personal attacks. Nobody wants to scroll through eight pages of discussion to find a useful answer to their question! Worse yet, the tone on these forums keeps a lot of triathletes from asking their own questions. Triathletes need a simple place where they can get answers quickly while feeling safe to share their experiences.
TriathlonAnswers.com is a place where everyone, from newbies to experienced veterans can go to ask questions and share their experiences with other triathletes. Who knows better than another triathlete? Unlike typical forums, which list posts chronologically, TriathlonAnswers.com is based on new software that allows you to rate answers as helpful. The answers rated most helpful show up at the top of the page, just under the question. We envision TriathlonAnswers.com as an amalgamation of knowledge from books, other websites, and personal experience, all ranked by how helpful it is to other triathletes. The site is designed to be “search engine friendly”, so someone who types a question into Google should see relevant answers on TriathlonAnswers.com close to the top of the list. This is a site built by triathletes for triathletes.
This platform allows you to earn “reputation” based on the answers you provide and how helpful you are to the community. If you have higher reputation, you can help us make the site better by retagging questions (tags are like categories), flagging posts as inappropriate, and even editing or voting to close questions. In other words, the more you participate the more you can do to help shape this resource.
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Welcome to my corner of the Web. 