How do you make an advice column?

Why do people often use yahoo answers as an advice source?

• Now, I realize I'm as guilty of this as the next person, but, I've noticed that a large number of people use Yahoo answers as some sort of advice column, asking things like, 'My sister tried to commit suicide, what should I do?' or 'What colour make up looks best with green eyes?', it's pretty funny, when you see some of these questions. I'm very sorry to say this, but for all the people who use yahoo answers as an advice column, there are several sites you can use instead, as in, REAL advice columnists sites and forums for people with those specific issues, yahoo answers is NOT your best friend, so I don't see why you'd ask all these questions. So, really, why do people do this? It completely baffles me, so, if anyone has any reasoning to this, please explain.

• Answer:

  Because they are hoping for good answers of course. You never know what kind of answers you will get here. While I would keep in mind the Y!A disclaimer basically warning that the answers here could be wrong, the idea behind the site is that there is a huge pool of members, which means that the odds are that there are people who are experts or even professionals in many categories. For example a good friend of mine is a doctor, and I sometimes ask her for advice and answer peoples' medical questions with it. Of course the askers aren't doctors themselves, so often they can't tell that my answer is based on professional input. But many times those answers have helped people out with useful medical information, which is why they came on the site and asked their questions in the first place.