For general information on what ZotFish is, and how it works, please see our About section.

No; their participation will depend on the quality of the questions asked and the number of votes those questions receive. They are under no obligation to answer questions or any particular questions. However, they are free to answer any questions they wish at any time.

We are contacting them one-by-one, giving priority to those celebrities, politicians, and public figures who have received the most questions and votes. To get them interested, we need to prove the interest the public has in reading their answers on the site — by showing them the number of questions asked and the number of votes they've received. We're doing everything we can to get lots of great questions and lots of votes on the site in these first two weeks after launching, as well as everything we can to get them answered. However, in the end, it's your participation that will drive the site — we're just the medium.

Absolutely; these names are just the "tip of the iceberg." We currently have a database of thousands of more names to be added, and we will be adding more and more names as the site grows in popularity.

We have used a combination of factors, such as overall popularity, variety of interests, experience with the Internet (e.g., do they already have a blog?), how involved they are in current events, and other factors.

There are already a number of existing sites where you can ask other people questions on the Internet, Yahoo! Answers being one of the more prominent. Our site is different because it lets you ask specific people who are recognized in the public eye.

Our objective assessment for determining who is eligible for inclusion on ZotFish is simple: they must have an established entry in the English-language version of Wikipedia. This is the most "democratic" and transparent standard currently available for determining someone's public "notability."

Yes they can — they function much like blog posts, except that these "questionless answers" can be voted up or down just like other answers.

Sure they can. They write a "questionless answer" as described above, but they ask users for their opinions. Of course, they receive hundreds of answers instead of just one, in the comments section — but users still vote up the best ones.

No. Our site is a vehicle for open, direct, honest public discourse, and any kind of payment would disort that. The costs of running the site are maintained through advertising, but our content remains 100% independent of any advertising or payment.

Absolutely — this is one of the main ways we are deciding who to add next. To suggest someone, just visit our contributor suggestion page.

Voting a question up means you want that question to be answered. Voting a question down means you think the question is inappropriate.

The more a question gets voted up, the more prominently it will be shown in the list of all questions for the public figure, for the category, and for the whole site — and can help it get even more votes.

And the more votes a question has, the more likely it is to be answered. Public figures are able to select the questions they want to answer in any way they see fit, but they are most likely to answer the questions that their public has demonstrated the most interest in wanting answered.

Voting up the answer means you find the answer interesting, and will help push the answer up in popularity, so that it appears as a top answer within the relevant category, and possibly even make its way to the front page.

Voting an answer down means you think that the answer was lacking in something — perhaps that it evaded the question, or that it was not as informative as it should have been. Nothing special happens to answers that are voted down, but they do send a message to the public figure that they may want to explain themselves again.

We encourage you to vote political answers up or down not based on your own political opinions, but on how well you think the question is answered.

Voting requires the registration of a name, at minimum. While we do not require the registration of an e-mail address (as we do for asking questions) we have a number of safeguards in place to detect multiple votes and remove them after the fact. (You may notice that the vote count on a particular question might suddenly decrease; this would be due to the removal of obviously fraudulent votes that came from the same computer.) Note that all votes are weighted equally — no user's votes count any more or any less than any other user's. Voting is transparent, so that each question and answer lists which users have voted it up or down, and every user's page lists which questions and answers he or she has voted up or down.

Each vote up adds one to the vote total, and each vote down subtracts one. We display this final total. You can see who has cast votes up or down by clicking the "Who voted" link on any question or answer page.

When a question is answered, the original question can no longer be voted on or have comments added. Instead, voting and comments begin anew for the answer instead. However, you can still view the comments and vote count for the original question — just click "original question votes/comments" on the main answer page.

Absolutely. On the right side of any question or answer's main page, there is a link to e-mail the question or answer to your friends. Additionally, an e-mail link appears every time you vote a question or answer up.

It works the same way — there is a link to share any question or answer with your friends on Facebook, on the right side of any question or answer's main page, and a link that appears every time you vote a question or answer up.

New: We've just created a Facebook application that lets you show questions on your profile page, publish your questions to your newsfeed, and browse and vote on ZotFish questions from within Facebook itself. Try it out right now.

This is a link to a document that you can use in a newsreader. You can subscribe to a public figure's answers, or to any other list you generate on the questions page — your search and sort settings are included within the feed parameters itself. While e-mail notification is only available for new answers from specific public figures, RSS/Atom feeds are much more flexible.

We want to give the public a voice equal to that of public figures. Since these public figures are not anonymous, we also encourage our users not to be. We seek an elevated level of public discourse, and we feel it helps not to have users hiding behind pseudonyms. Think of ZotFish like a "Letters to the Editor" section, not as an anonymous forum.

However, we also strongly respect your privacy. We only require that your first name is visible to everyone else on the site. It is up to you to decide whether or not to display your last name, location, or to choose to upload a photograph of yourself.

Yes, you can choose to show or hide your last name and/or location on your user account page. We recommend showing both, but understand if you choose to show your first name only.

It is possible for two users with the same name to both post in a comments section, where their names could be confused. (Clicking on their names will lead to different user pages, however.) Because of this, we recommend that you display your last name and location as well.

You have the option of changing whether or not your last name or location is displayed at any time. However, we do not allow you to change your name directly because it is already associated with your votes, comments and questions. If you entered your name incorrectly before or if your name has changed, then you must create a new account (to use the same e-mail address, you must delete your old account first.)

You can do both things on your user account page. Note that even if your comments are left public, people can still choose to send you comments that are private-only (this way you can exchange information with other users without making it publicly visible).

No. All your comments, questions and votes are visible to all users of the site (except for comments on other users' pages that you have specifically requested to keep private). We disallow anonymous questions in order to maintain a level of quality, and we list users' votes in order to demonstrate transparency and honesty in vote counts. Our site is built on the principles of openness and transparency.

We will never use your e-mail address for any purposes other than direct communication with you regarding your account, and for notifications that you choose to receive. You have full control over which e-mails you may receive from us on your account page. Your e-mail address will never be given, rented or sold to any third-party.

Unfortunately, we cannot allow questions or comments to be deleted or edited once they've been posted. Other users can begin voting and commenting on questions, and voting on comments, as soon as they're posted — changing a question or comment afterwards would wind up changing the meaning of their votes, and open up the system to abuse.

For this reason, we provide a question-preview page for every question you ask. We encourage you to use this to double-check spelling and grammar.

No, only public figures can post video messages. It is necessary that questions be in a short text format so that they can be voted on easily.

Individual user-submitted questions and comments are licensed through a Creative Commons Public Domain license. This means that you are free to reproduce individual questions and comments anywhere you like, for non-commercial or commercial purposes. However, the answers given by public figures are not included under this license, and they remain the property of their respective authors. In addition, while the individual questions on our site are licensed through the Creative Commons Public Domain license, we maintain copyright of the collection of questions in the aggregate, which means that large numbers of questions on our site cannot be reproduced without our permission.

You can request for instructions for resetting your password to be sent to your e-mail address here.

For your security, your account password is stored in encrypted format on our servers. When we check your password at sign-in, we encrypt the password you typed and check it against the version in our database. This means that it is impossible to retrieve your original password from our database. For this reason, if you forget your password, we require that you set a new one.

Yes. If you decide you'd rather not have the comment on that person's user page, a "delete" link appears next to comments you have made. You can delete comments of your own from other users' pages the same way you delete comments left on your own user page.

We need to limit the number of questions any user can ask over a 24-hour period in order to prevent "question spam," and to help ensure the quality of questions being asked.

You can disable your account from your user account page. By disabling your account, there is no way to reactivate it — it is disabled permanently. However, your e-mail address can be re-used to open a new account in the future.

Note that disabling your account means that your photograph, greeting and comments left on your page will be deleted. However, all questions, votes and comments you have made on the site will remain.

The best option is to simply vote down the given question or comment. The material will become harder to view, and eventually, the user should "get the message." Because our site is built on openness and direct communication, we prefer not to censor any communication directly, but rather allow the community to vote. (Although we do prohibit certain swear words in posts.) However, if a user repeatedly posts inappropriate material and voting them down is not effective, or if a user posts highly offensive or illegal material, then please notify us at the e-mail address for user abuse on the contact page.

The zotfish is a rare aquatic vertebrate that lives in the most remote reaches of the Amazon river. Looking somewhat like a cross between a dolphin and an anglerfish, it has never been seen by the human eye. However, legend has it that if you dive deep into the river and shout a question underwater, the zotfish will reply in your dreams with an answer, as you slumber that night. Our site works "kind of" the same way!