CSFAQ is a crowdsourced FAQ system that enables learners to answer each other's questions, reducing administrative load while rewarding helpful participation. Approved peer answers are integrated into the official internship FAQ, creating a self-sustaining knowledge base.
Version: 1.0
Audience: Interns building the CSFAQ module
CSFAQ is a Crowdsourced FAQ system where interns help each other by answering questions — and when an answer is good enough, it gets added to the official internship FAQ that every future intern sees.
The system is designed around a simple idea: the intern who just went through Step 4 is the best person to answer another intern's question about Step 4. Instead of routing every question to a human admin, the platform crowdsources answers from the intern community itself.
Good answers earn the platform's participation currency.
The internship support queue fills up with hundreds of questions every week. Most of them are identical, and most of them are answerable by any intern who has already been through the same step. Without this system, two things happen:
- Admins spend their time answering questions that peers could answer.
- The same question gets asked — and answered — over and over, with no memory between instances.
CSFAQ breaks this cycle. A question answered once becomes a permanent FAQ entry. The intern who answered it earns points. The intern who asked it gets credit for surfacing a gap. And every future intern who would have asked the same thing finds the answer immediately without asking at all.
Any intern who is logged in and has a question. It does not matter where they are in the internship journey. The question can be about anything — the process, a course, a deadline, a technical issue, anything internship-related.
An intern who has already begun their internship (start date has passed). They are eligible to pull questions from the queue and answer them. Pre-start interns can ask but cannot answer — they haven't been through the process yet.
An admin team member who reviews answers before they go live. They can approve a direct answer, refine a proposed FAQ entry, or take over a question that no peer was able to answer.
Has final say on all new FAQ proposals. Any answer that would create a new FAQ entry must be signed off by the superadmin before it is published.
Every question has exactly two valid answer types:
The answerer believes an existing FAQ entry already covers this question. They point to that entry. If the reviewer agrees, the question is resolved — the asker is directed to the existing FAQ entry.
Why this matters: Many questions are already answered. This path closes the loop quickly and rewards interns for knowing the FAQ well.
The answerer believes no existing entry covers this question, and they write a proposed new FAQ entry — a question heading and a full answer. This goes through admin review and, if approved, is permanently added to the official FAQ.
Why this matters: This is how the FAQ grows. Every approved create-faq answer makes the FAQ better for every future intern.
Intern raises a question
│
▼
System assigns it to an eligible answerer (random pull from queue)
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├── Answerer claims it (3-hour lock to respond)
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├── Answerer submits: Find FAQ ──▶ Admin reviews ──▶ Resolved
│
└── Answerer submits: Create FAQ ──▶ Admin refines ──▶ Superadmin approves ──▶ Added to FAQ
If no one answers within the window, or multiple answerers skip it, the question is marked stalled and an admin steps in to answer it directly.
On asking:
- One open question per intern at a time. Raise a new one only after the current one is resolved.
- Questions must be internship-related. Personal or off-topic questions will be rejected.
- An optional screenshot can be attached (useful for platform errors or confusing UI).
On answering:
- An answerer "pulls" a question from the queue. This gives them a 3-hour window to respond. If they do not respond in time, the question is returned to the queue.
- An answerer cannot answer their own question.
- An answerer cannot cherry-pick questions — the queue assigns them.
- A question that is skipped by multiple answerers, or left unanswered after multiple lock cycles, becomes stalled and goes to admin.
On FAQ entries:
- A Create-FAQ answer is a proposal, not a direct answer. It goes through two layers of review (Tier-1 admin, then superadmin) before it is live.
- The admin can edit the proposed question heading and answer body during review. The answerer's credit is preserved regardless.
- Approved entries are added to the official
INTERNSHIP_FAQ_PUBLIC.md— the living document that is the internship FAQ.
- It does not replace the admin escalation queue. Interns who need a human response for sensitive or urgent issues should still use
#escalate. Both systems run in parallel. - It does not guarantee an answer in any specific time. Questions can sit in the queue until an eligible answerer claims them.
- It does not allow interns to directly edit the FAQ. All FAQ changes go through admin review.
| Screen | Who Sees It | Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| Raise a Question | Any intern | Submit a new question with optional screenshot |
| My Questions | Asker | Track status of questions they have raised |
| Answer a Question | Eligible answerer | Pull and respond to an open question from the queue |
| Admin Review Queue | Tier-1 admin | Review peer-submitted answers, approve or refine |
| FAQ Approval Queue | Superadmin | Final sign-off on Create-FAQ proposals |
- The admin queue shrinks because peers are answering questions that would have gone to admins.
- The FAQ grows over time, organically, from real questions interns asked.
- Interns who are active answerers are visibly recognised through a reward system.
- An intern who has been through the process feels ownership over the FAQ they helped build.