Facebook Questions: Your questions answered, probably by stupid people

The great puzzles of life, the universe and everything are about to be answered. Facebook Questions is here to offer enlightenment by way of the collective wisdom of the social network's 500 million users.

The new feature adds a button to your home page that posits posers, brainteasers and solicitations to the entire Facebook community. As well as straightforward questions, you can attach photos or create polls. Answers can be voted up and down with a green tick or red cross.

Tag your question with a subject, and users who've expressed interest in those subjects will see your question. We can't help thinking of this as another sneaky way of collecting information on your likes and habits for targeting contextual advertising.

If you find a particular Facebooker to be especially informative, you can follow them to see all their answers. Questions and answers are visible to the public and anyone on the Internet -- if you want to target a specific group, you'll need to stick with status updates.

Facebook Questions is in beta and reportedly available to between 3 and 5 million users. Judging by the comments on the blog post announcement, it'll be the best opportunity to laugh at idiots, numbskulls and doofuses since Yahoo Answers.

What question would you like to ask the Facebook community -- and who would win in a fight between Kirk and Picard? Let us know in the comments.