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Tens of thousands of questions are asked and answered every day on social question and answer (Q&A) Web sites such as Yahoo Answers. While these sites generate an enormous volume of searchable data, the problem of determining which questions and answers are archival quality has grown. One major component of this problem is the prevalence of conversational questions, identified both by Q&A sites and academic literature as questions that are intended simply to start discussion. For example, a conversational question such as "do you believe in evolution?" might successfully engage users in discussion, but probably will not yield a useful web page for users searching for information about evolution. Using data from three popular Q&A sites, we confirm that humans can reliably distinguish between these conversational questions and other informational questions, and present evidence that …