GreenAnswers is a free question and answer site devoted to environmental topics. We are completely community driven-- our users ask and answer the questions and also rate the quality of the answers and comments. By relying on the expertise of our community, we strive to be the authoritative resource on the Internet for environmental issues.

Karma is a measure of both the quality and quantity of the content a member has created on GreenAnswers.

Karma is gained (or lost) for the following events:

• Asking a Question: +1
• Answering a Question: +1
• Commenting on an Answer: +1
• Receiving an 'Up' vote on an answer: +1
• Receiving a 'Downvote' vote on an answer: -1
• Logging into the site at least once per day: +1

Every member's Karma is displayed next to their username on the site. This way, when you read someone's content, you will know how much experience and value they have contributed to the community in the past.

When voting on a fellow member's answer, we suggest you think about whether the content is accurate, fair minded and well written-- Basically, is it helpful or not?

All answers automatically start with "1 Helpful" vote, since the person submitting the answer hopefully thinks their own answer is helpful. 

The best thing about Karma is that you can always improve it with your next submission!

You can see a list of the recent and all time Karma leaders here.

If user submitted content is offensive or inappropriate it will be taken down. The community can report such content by clicking on the "Report Abuse" link next to most questions, answers and comments. Additionally, our moderators may also edit content for spelling or grammatical issues.

No. It is against the site's Terms and Conditions to register with more than one username. Voting activity is tracked and if fraud is detected (i.e., a user signing up for more than one account and using it to manipulate vote counts) that user (and IP address) may be banned from the site.

If you come across content that is obscene, abusive, very offensive, nonsensical, or spam, please click the "Report Abuse" link. If enough users flag the same piece of content, it will be sent to a moderator who will make the decision whether to delete, edit, or leave the content as-is.

We encourage you to use this space to share a little bit about why you are passionate about environmental issues. Of course, it is your "About me" so feel free to put your own spin on what you write here. If you are an active participant on GreenAnswers, this is your chance to let your fellow members know who is behind all those great questions and answers.

When visitors who are not logged into GreenAnswers arrive at the site via the "Ask or Answer a Green Question" page, they can create a trial account which assigns them a default username of "AnonXYXY". Until these new members go into their profile page and manually give themselves a custom username, they will continue to appear on the site as an "anon". In order to view the "Ask or Answer a Green Question" page, you must not be logged into GreenAnswers (otherwise you will be redirected to the regular Ask a Question page.)

The watchlist allows you to track content on GreenAnswers that you find most interesting. You can add questions, as well as topics, to your watchlist. When you are "watching" a question, you will be notified whenever that question is answered. When you are watching a topic, you will be notified whenever there is a new question asked in that topic (or any of its sub-topics).

You can add questions to your watchlist by clicking on the 'star' icon:

You can add topics to your watchlist by navigating to a specific topic page (such as http://greenanswers.com/topic/animals-wildlife) and clicking on the 'star' icon found next to the topic name:

Whenever there are updates to content you are watching, you will receive a message in your GreenAnswers inbox and will also be sent an email. You can modify all of your email preferences inside your profile page.

The vast majority of content on GreenAnswers is created by members of the general public. GreenAnswers is free to use, so anyone can create an account and begin asking and answering questions.

We also have a small group of writers and interns who work in an official capacity. If you are interested, please introduce yourself via our contact page.