Question mark
The rhetorical question mark or percontation point was invented by Henry Denham in the 1580s and was used at the end of a rhetorical question; however, its use died out in the 17th century. It was later revived in modern-day society by Matt DiRoberto. It was the reverse of an ordinary question mark, so that instead of the main opening pointing back into the sentence, it opened away from it. This character can be represented using the reversed question mark (⸮) found in Unicode as U+2E2E. The percontation point is analogous to the irony mark, but those are even more rarely seen.
Q&amp;A software
In the late 1990s, a free online service called Answer Point provided by Ask Jeeves, was launched, allowing users to ask questions and with the help of other people, have them answered. The slogan of the service, "The Ask Jeeves Answer Point is the place where you can ask and answer questions. Have a question? Post it! Know the answer? Post it!", indicated the main function of it, which inspired the creation of later Q&A sites. The last archived version of the Ask Point was from late 2001 when it still allowed registration.