Glossary
What is an AMA?
An AMA (ask me anything) is a time-boxed event where one guest answers open questions from a community, usually in writing.
In more detail
The format was popularized on Reddit, where public figures open a thread and answer questions for an afternoon. The idea travels well: a founder in a startup community, a hiring manager in a job-seekers group, a maintainer in an open-source project.
What makes an AMA different from a panel or a webinar is who sets the agenda. In a webinar the speaker decides what to cover. In an AMA the audience does. That is why AMAs surface questions nobody would have put on a slide, and why they need a little structure to stay useful: a clear topic, questions collected in advance, and a firm end time.
Most AMAs are written, which means the answers outlast the event. Some run live on a call with a written thread alongside it. Either way, the thread is the thing people come back to.
Example
AMA: pricing your first cohortGood practice
Small habits that make the difference.
Collect questions a few days early
Open the thread before the event so people in other time zones can take part, and so the guest can prepare.
Pick a narrow topic
"Ask me anything about hiring your first engineer" gets better questions than "ask me anything".
Answer the quiet questions too
Take the most liked questions first, then a few that got no likes. Newcomers often ask the most useful ones.
Close it on time
An AMA with a visible end time feels like an event. One that never closes becomes a stale thread.
How Dium handles it
In Dium, a Wave can run in AMA mode with an end time. When that time passes, Dium archives the Wave, so it stops collecting questions and the answers stay on the record.
Related terms
Office hours
Office hours are a recurring, open time slot when an expert is available to answer whatever people bring to them.
Read definitionLive Q&A
Live Q&A is a session where an audience asks questions in real time and a host or panel answers them on the spot.
Read definitionBest answer
The one reply on a question that the asker or a moderator marks as the reply that actually solved it.
Read definition