How do you sort all of the questions you get? If it were me, I'd have categories: 1. Questions, we get lots of questions; 2. file for later; 3. piques my interest, file for now; 4. File 13 (commonly know as the trash can); 5. outside my pay grade, but maybe attempt; and 6. Wow! Heaps of trouble if I even consider this one. Willing to supply any enlightenment about your process?
[Editor's Note: This one is answered by Deke Castleman. The emails generated from the "Have a Question -- Submit a QoD" button at the bottom of the QoD pages go to his inbox -- as many of you, who've received email responses from him when he answers your questions directly, are aware. Being the recipient of the submission, as well as the long-time senior editor at Huntington Press and the content manager for the website, he's the one who sorts the questions. Here's how he explains his process.]
Category 7: Did I eat a good breakfast? Category 8: Is my wife annoyed at me? Category 9: Did the VGK win last night?
Just kidding, of course; sorting QoD submissions has only a little to do with my state of mind at any given time. Generally, my state of mind is that I'm happy to see every question that's submitted -- even after I read them!
Your categories are very close to the way I size up the questions. I'd number them a little differently, though.
The ones that pique my interest are the first I sort; Category 1 questions immediately either go in a queue for me to answer or to forward to one of our stable of experts (about whom you can read in a QoD one of us answered a couple years ago).
Category 2 is the one I love. The questions that get sorted into this category require brief pithy responses that I can post in our omnibus "Questions. We get lots and lots of questions," like yesterday's. Those are my favorite QoDs to combine and answer. Why? It's just the way I roll.
Category 3 is, "We answered this question recently (say, in the past couple of years) and nothing has changed since, so ..." I track down the previous QoD, copy the URL, and paste it into a return email to the sender. (You might be interested to learn that I have the ultimate search tool: Every single QoD ever written, nearly 6,000 of them, is in a table on a single screen in the website content-management system. Coming up with the keyword(s) is sometimes challenging, but I can almost always find the post I'm looking for.)
Category 4 is, for sure, what you call File 13. I tend to have a binary process: yes or no. We receive so many questions that I have to be a bit ruthless in what I cull from the running.
I'd combine your Category 6 "heaps of trouble" in with my Category 4; answering some questions would open a can o' worms that isn't worth taking a lot of heat over, either from the LVA.com powers that be or readers. Other questions, I figure the submitter can just google the answer, the same as the QoD writer would. Some are simply too labor-intensive to research; though it might seem like we can simply reel off everything there is to know or say about Vegas and gambling, it often takes a lot of perseverance to get the answers we're looking for. Some are too personal or of little general appeal ("Where can I find the recipe for the chocolate souffle served at the Wicked Spoon Buffet?"). Others I try to assign, but no one is interested in answering, including yours truly. And some have a fatal flaw, of which there are any number, though I don't need to enumerate them here.
Finally, there's Category 5: maybe, possibly, feasibly, weather permitting. Frankly, these questions are one small step away from Category 4. A Category 5 on Monday turns into a Category 4 on Tuesday after we receive three Category 1 and 2 questions that bump it off the bottom of the to-do list.
All in all, I never tire of seeing what LVA.com readers are wondering. Question of the Day is by far the most interactive feature on this website and most others that have to do with Las Vegas. It's always a pleasure and, in fact, a privilege to help facilitate it.
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SoCalDude
Jan-22-2020
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