You turn on the news, and you just can’t stop hearing all those names: Sarah Palin, Barack Obama, John McCain, Joe Biden… They are everywhere, and the rumors are flying.

It could only mean one thing: It’s time to brush up on your presidential election knowledge before November rolls around.

Which is why WikiAnswers has a bunch of new categories that will serve as your official place to ask and answer questions concerning the U.S. presidential election in November: the candidates, the issues and more.

Here’s a quick ’site map’ of all the elections and current issues categories available:

• 2008 Presidential Campaign
• Joe Biden
• John McCain
• Barack Obama
• Sarah Palin
• 2008 Democratic National Convention
• 2008 Republican National Convention
• Global Warming
• Iraq war
• Veterans’ Affairs & Issues
• Abortion & Teen pregnancy
• Economics
• International Relations

And now, a word from Apryl - or An8thg - yesterday’s Contributor corner spotlight and the leader of the upcoming WikiAnswersVandal Patrol:

Imagine this moment:

You sit perched over your keyboard, rapidly entering search terms, seeking the answer to your latest conundrum when all of a sudden you receive the glorious message…

Is this your question?

‘Yes, that’s it!’ you shout as you jump up, nearly knocking your obnoxiously large drink clear across the room.

The page loads…

And the answer is: HAHAHAHA! LOL! U R STUPID!

At this point, you smash your face into your keyboard and now wear the ‘ASDF’ badge on your forehead for the next fifteen minutes.

Who will save you from these senseless acts of frustration and vandalism?

We will!
We are the Vandal Patrol.

The Vandal Patrol Program is the defense and attack strategy being implemented for WikiAnswers. The program consists of three different divisions, Site Guardians, Alternates Specialists and Site Investigators and each division will focus on a specific task.

Site Guardians will serve as our first line of site defense through the constant monitoring of the Recent Contributions page. Guard the door!

Alternates Specialists will work specifically on the mountain of alternates that require splitting and merging, as well as maintaining and updating site catch-alls. Heal our wounds!

Site Investigators will specialize in searching for and correcting answers containing vandalism and incorrect information. This will be accomplished through keyword searches in option two of the Advanced Search page. Detect and destroy!

Site Generalists can assist the various divisions of the Vandal Patrol or simply ‘keep an eye out’ on a more casual basis.

The members of the Vandal Patrol Program hope to rid the site of vandalized answers and to save the foreheads of all our users from ever wearing the ‘ASDF’ badge again!

Supervisors interested in volunteering for a specific division, please contact Apryl at an8thg @ wikianswers.com or leave a note on her message board.

Mission: Recategorization - the contest designed to get as many Q&A’s out of Uncategorized and into their respective categories ended last week. Turns out it was successful and thousands of recategorizations were accomplished in a week’s time.

View the first-fifth place winners and their numbers of recats!

Lord Arador was the the first place winner with 7,627 recats; did you sleep at all that week?

Second place is held by Aggie80 with 6,994 recats; not too far behind.

There were three winners for third place:HisPowr4U with 5,554 recats, Singingangel93 with 4,682 recats, and Amlove32 with 4,576 recats.

Congratulations to all the winners, who really worked hard - those numbers are impressive! Extra kudos goes to those who not only recategorized, but took extra time to place questions in the deepest appropriate subcategories.

Until next time… bask in the glory of a mission accomplished!

With enthusiasm matching that of the WikiAnswers community-at-large, dozens of Answers Corp employees gathered together for the best use of the lunchroom ever… A mini AnswerThon, where they could actually win something for participating.

From product managers to office managers, system techies to content editors, the room was filled with the diversity and creativity of the team behind WikiAnswers.

Here’s a run down in photos:

Busy bees at work!

I wonder which category he’s getting so thoughtful about…

Sometimes the floor is the best place to find the answers to life’s questions. Or recategorize them.

Hey, what’s so funny - the Humor and Amusement category?

Nothing like going to work on WikiAnswers…

A major congratulations for WikiAnswers community member HisPowr4u, who recently passed 200,000 contributions (and is also now the all-time Top Contributor)!

One of the wonderful members of the Community Development team of WikiAnswers, Deb, is organizing a new initiative involving the teens or youth of WikiAnswers. This is an effort to organize the creativity and power of this important contributor demographic into a social program for teens.

There is currently a contest going on to provide a name for this program; get more details at the following Q&A:

What is the WikiAnswers Teens - Youth initiative naming contest?

Click the question and find out more about the program, the contest and more.