NPR News

Ask and Ye Shall Receive ... Online

NPR | By Melody Joy Kramer

Published December 7, 2006 at 6:21 PM EST

Want to know the best spots to elope if you're a prince trying to avoid prickly relatives during the ceremony? Ask Metafilter will have the answers.

Mom always said two heads were better than one. What would she say about thousands of heads, all with varying tidbits of knowledge -- and all willing to help answer anything or everything on your mind?

That's the gist of the three-year-old Web site Ask Metafilter, a growing community weblog that "queries the hive mind" for answers to obscure, "previously unanswerable" -- and sometimes personal -- questions.

For a $5 registration fee, you can join the ranks of the askers (or answerers). Expect anywhere from one to hundreds of responses to a post, depending on the topic. Queries range from techie -- " How do I use my TV as a monitor?"* -- to Heloisey -- "How do I get rid of six months of accumulated burned 'stuff' from a baking tray?"** -- to unusually personal -- "What are the practical repercussions of getting married and not telling anyone?"*** The site even lets you post with the user name "anonymous" if you're shy. Site administrators moderate the questions. The community self-polices (and weeds out inappropriate answers).

The best answers on Metafilter are those that provide an Aha! moment -- like the obscure book you remember from childhood, only you can't recall the title. Someone will know. And when you want to find the best (used book store/pancake joint/park) anywhere in the world, chances are that one of Metafilter's thousands of members will tell you exactly where to go. So if "Five for Friday" didn’t give you the right mix of ideas for weekend fun, go ahead, ask Metafilter. We won’t be insulted. And we may even give you the answer.

*If you have a high-def TV, you can plug the a cable into the VGA slot on the back. If not, you'll probably need a TV card.

**Oven-cleaner or a baking soda/vinegar solution (Who knew?!)

*** It may hurt your friends and your family -- and people will think you're a weirdo.

Melody Joy Kramer is spending a year at NPR as part of the Joan B. Kroc Fellowship program. Her favorite hive mind is in Arthur C. Clarke's novel Childhood's End.