Facilitating content generation via messaging system interactions

A computer-implemented method for an answer-providing service to interact with users who submit questions using electronic messages based on a defined messaging interface, the submitted questions to be answered by other users, the method comprising:

• receiving indications of multiple questions submitted by multiple users, each of the questions being submitted by one of the multiple users based on one or more electronic messages received from the one user;
• for each of the questions, responding to the question by
• obtaining one or more responses to the question from each of multiple users other than the user who supplied the question;
• and
• identifying at least some of the obtained responses to be used as an answer to the question;
• and
• providing the answer to the user who submitted the question as part of one or more electronic messages sent to the user, at least one of the electronic messages sent to the user including a tracking identifier associated with the user by the answer-providing service to enable the user to later send one or more additional electronic messages to the answer-providing service that include the tracking identifier for use by the answer-providing service in determining that the additional messages are from the user;
• receiving from a user a reply message to an electronic message previously sent to the user as part of sending an answer to a question to the user, the reply message including the tracking identifier included in the previously sent electronic message and a command from the user that is not specific to the answer for which the electronic message was previously sent;
• and
• automatically determining to perform the command based at least in part on the reply message including the tracking identifier included in the previously sent electronic message, the automatic determining being performed by one or more programmed computing systems of the answer-providing service.

A non-transitory computer-readable medium whose contents configure a computing device to facilitate interactions with users who submit requests using electronic messages in order to obtain replies from other users, by performing a method comprising:

• receiving an indication of a request supplied by a first user via one or more electronic messages;
• automatically generating a reply to the request based on one or more responses obtained from one or more users other than the first user;
• and
• automatically sending the reply to the first user via one or more other electronic messages, at least one of the other electronic messages including a tracking identifier associated with the first user by the answer-providing service to enable the first user to later send one or more additional messages that include information based on the tracking identifier for use in determining that the additional messages are from the first user;
• after the automatic sending to the first user of the reply to the request, receiving from the first user a command message including a command unrelated to the reply to the request;
• and
• automatically determining to perform the command based at least in part on the command message including the tracking identifier included in the previously sent at least one of the other electronic messages, the automatic determining being performed by the configured computing device.

A computing device configured to enable interactions via electronic messages to submit questions to be answered by other users, comprising:

• one or more processors;
• a first component configured to when executed by at least one of the one or more processors, respond to each of multiple questions that are each supplied by a requester via one or more electronic messages, by
• obtaining one or more responses to the question from one or more users;
• and
• generating an answer to the question based on at least one of the obtained responses;
• a second component configured to, when executed by at least one of the one or more processors, and for each of the multiple questions, provide the answer to the requester who supplied the question as part of one or more electronic messages that include a generated tracking identifier associated with the requester for later use in one or more replies sent from the requester that include the tracking identifier;
• and
• a third component configured to, when executed by at least one of the one or more processors, respond to an indication of a command not specific to a response to a previous question and supplied by a requester via a reply message, the responding including determining whether to perform the command based at least in part on whether the reply message including the indication of the command also includes the tracking identifier included in a previously sent electronic message to the requester supplying the indication of the command.