Google Blogoscoped

Friday, June 27, 2008

Pomoc Google: Google Answers for Poland
By Tony Ruscoe

In much the same way that Google launched the Russian-only Knowledge Search almost exactly a year ago, a new Google Help site has now been launched by Google Poland.

The site’s FAQ page (available in English) explains:

Google Help is a place where you can ask questions about Google services and give answers to questions posted by other users looking for help.

Google Help is an unmoderated forum for users wanting to discuss Google Products. We encourage you to ask questions, answer questions from others and exchange experience. A Google employee will pop in from time to time and post and their message will appear with a badge. Note: only posts marked with a Google badge are approved by Google.

It then goes on to list the rules of the new site:

  1. Keep it safe. Remember, your posts can be read by users around the world. Don’t make the mistake of posting personal information of any kind, especially your passwords, your phone number, or your credit card number. No Google representative will ever ask for this information on Google Help.
  2. Keep it clean. The forum are for users of all ages, so do your part to keep a lid on foul language and grouchy attitudes.
  3. Keep it on topic. We reserve the right to delete messages that are intentionally off-topic – like commercial advertisements or other promotional material, spamming/excessive multi-posting, chain letters, and binary (non-text) postings.
  4. Be nice to beginners. A lot of users look here for help and advice. Being courteous and patient won’t hurt, and will definitely help in keeping a good atmosphere, especially for those, who are making their first steps online.

Given the much more English-looking URL – google.com/support/forum vs. otvety.google.ru/otvety – perhaps Google plans to make this an international service that will eventually replace Google Answers, which was shut down in November 2006.

Despite the official Google Poland blog saying that the “Poland version of Google Help is the premiere of this service in its current format - Poles can benefit from it as the first in the world” (via Google’s machine translation) it looks like the Polish “Pomoc Google” site uses exactly the same layout and technology as the Russian “Otvety” site, although they both use different service names* and require the user to signup for each one separately.

[Thanks Rafal Mateja!]

*The Russian site uses the Knowledge Search service and the new Polish one uses Google Help.

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