Lets Get Busy!
As I write this, there are 714 unanswered questions, waiting for you! Consider this: If even only 5 users get involved in this event, and average 4 answers per day, in four weeks we will take care of 560 questions! This will be a success, if you try hard, and do your best. This is a community effort, and you are not alone! It's okay to be competitive, as long as you are supportive of the others who are working at this project. Try to be the most helpful!
Let's find out:
How many questions can we take care of by September 1?
Here are some tips to lead you to success:
If you are interested in this project, please comment below. Start comments in this purpose with something like, "I am interested in helping with this event.".
How many answers per week do you think you can manage? Find out how much Stack exchange time you have, and how much time per question you average. Try to post as many answers as you can fit in your 'time-budget'
Remember to answer new questions as well, or they will make the list longer.
Each day, run through all the active questions that were activated since you were on last, and vote on all the useful answers you can find. Try to use your maximum number of votes each day!
If everyone seems to be avoiding an exceptionally tough question, consider adding a bounty on it. Even a small one will gain the question lots of attention, and provide a positive incentive for answering.
If you find an unanswerable/off-topic question, close it! These will not benefit the site in any way, and we don't want new users to see them and possibly use them as a model.
To go with that, if a question seems on topic, but necessary info that was requested before never got posted, consider the question unanswerable, and vote to close it. If the OP wants to reopen, they will be required to give the requested information.
Some questions were written in a poor format, and were hard to understand. This may have been because of sloppiness from the OP, or sometimes an online interpreter misreading, and sometimes users who don't have English as their first language. If you see one of these and think it can be improved, take some time and edit! This will not only bump the question up where everyone sees it, but it makes it easier to understand.
If you aren't knowledgeable in Biology (like myself) Don't worry! You can still be a big help! Find and upvote useful answers on older questions. If you can't tell whether or not an answer is helpful, look for accepts, and upvotes from other users.
Do you have questions regarding what's on topic, and the help center isn't helping? Bring up the examples in a meta post!
If you start an answer, and get stuck, don't give up. post your progress on chat, and everyone can help you. This is a community attempt. Don't feel like you're on your own.
Try to get on chat as often as you can, to help others with tough questions, to ask for advice, and generally support this project.
If someone else made a mistake while answering, be understanding. These things happen when you are posting a high volume of posts. Let them know politely in a comment, or if it is something simple, try to edit it yourself.
Take on the questions in whatever way you feel is most efficient. You could sort by tags, votes, views, age, or whatever feels easiest to you. You may end up answering a question someone else is working on, and that is fine. Two answers are better than one!
Talk about what you're doing on chat. It is generally helpful for you biologists to know what sort of questions each other participant is interested in. You can recommend specific questions to specific users, or tell everyone what you do best.
Another idea: Know someone who can answer? Share a link to the question via email, Google+, Twitter, or Facebook.
If you believe you have a good method of answering, and would like to share it, please do so in a comment on the original question. Do not swamp this answer with opinionated comments. We want to be orderly. If your suggestion is deemed useful (Gets at least 3 comment votes), it may be added to this post.
This question will be updated on September 1. If this event is successful, We will then focus harder on answers per question.
Otherwise, we will regroup and chop away at the unanswered questions some more. Only you can bring success to this project, and it's starting now!
Get out there and have fun helping!