Cast Your Vote
The experience of putting a question to the community and seeing the answers flowing to your inbox is gratifying. And picking the ultimate answer for your question gives you the opportunity to share the outcome of your query with millions of people.
Yet for those indecisive people out there who can’t really make their minds up on a Best Answer, they can put their question up for voting and let the community decide.
Voting for Best Answer is a way to share your opinion and make a difference within the community. Not only do you help other members resolve their sticky situations or philosophical flounderings, you also gain points as you vote.
In his novel The Picture of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde wrote: “You know more than you think you know, just as you know less than you want to know.” Voting for Best Answer can help you master both. You can share your opinions and test your knowledge by resolving others’ problems. But you might also discover great new things by browsing undecided questions and judging which responses deserve to be chosen as Best Answer.
So, if you know a good indoor plant for the bathroom, are familiar with the best books for young adults, or have already explored which is the best LCD screen TV to buy, why not help the community now?
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AT LAST I HAVE REACHED LEVEL 7 AND NOW I AM AIMING FOR TOP CONTRIBUTOR, I HAVE MAKE SOME MANY FRIENDS ITS UNBELIEVEABLE ITS BEEN A JOYOUS EXPIRENCE, BUT A STRANGE PATHS TO GLORY BUT ITS BEEN WORTH IT. MANY THANKS.
Level has no bearing on top contributor. There are level 2′s that are top contributor in a field, it has to do with participating in an area you have some degree of expertise is, and getting a fair share of thumbs up and best answers in that category.
Note: this is my opinion based on observation, not some mystical inside knowledge of the way Yahoo does things.
its fun to answer the question sometimes its make me relax after work and also i found out that theres a lot of people need help or opinion like me…
Why not have an Unlimited voting day??? With over 2 MILLION voting ties site-wide, you should be doing all you can to eliminate the backlog. Scrambling the orders of the answers in voting only EXACERBATED the problem. Wake UP Yahoo !! Our Tiebusters Tech group cant do it all and you aint doing a darn thing to help!!!
super romantico
It was also help if the YA staff would get all those resolved questions out from under the voting tab. Also, the daily votes for level 6 and 7 users should be increased to reflect their status. The YAT wants us to help, but they don’t want to make the system such that it is easier to do it.
okay….
I definitely agree that scrambling the orders of answers exacerbates the problem with voting ties. So many times there is more than one answer that’s identical or almost identical. I feel that if that’s the best answer then the FIRST one to give it deserves the ‘best answer’ vote from me, but with the answers scrambled, how can tell which one that is?
Please have an unlimited voting day AND stop scrambling the answers for voting!
Does anyone else think it is ironic that the blog entry for today implores us to cast votes, but voting seems to be disabled at the moment? I’m seeing a lot of “Question period expired” today. What gives?
How about this… when a tie vote includes a “No Best Answer” and the other answerer is a Top Contributor how about “giving’ the points to them?
I think voting is great, but if people vote for their own answers what is the value of it?
Why people vote for their own answers? Self-indulgence, greediness, voracity, power, command.
not much to say but why vote…
i think putting the question to vote is a cool way to get help finding the best answer even if it is not the same answer that you think should be the best.
I think you should only let Level 3 and above vote. There is way too much cheating, people open up bogus fake accounts just to vote. Having a higher level req to vote would definitely deter this. Why not, you have to be Level 2 to rate a thumbs up/down.
Can anything be done about that “error 999″ message that always seems to pop up??? If I vote on more than 3 or 4 questions, then I get the error 999 message (which also locks me out of voting for a couple of hours). I’d vote on more questions if I didn’t get error messages while doing so.
Also, how about changing the default status on the voting tab to show the oldest questions first? This way, the old questions would get cleared up.
My marriage had gone through a terrible break up and I was so lost that I had to look for help on Yahoo Answers in the marriage and divorce section. Yahoo answers were so great that it helped me and my wife get back together and the people had great answers. Yahoo actually saved my marriage and I am so ever greatful for Yahoo having a marriage and divorce section. Thank you from the bottom of my heart. Aldo
its fun
hi
how are u
Clare, i don’t see anything wrong with “scrambling” the answers during voting. people were point gaming and voting the first answer without actually reading the others, just to get a point.
I think voting is down today. there are so many question period expired and tiebreakers despite there are no ties to break.
The frustrating thing about the voting process is when you put a lot of thought and care into an answer and the voters pick some smart aleck quip as the best answer instead of one where the writer really tried to answer the question.
Your point system is biased in favor the A’s which do not bear the greater degree of responsibility of the Q-askers who care about the Q&A process and are dedicated to finding the Best Answer by objective means! The vote fall back by asker choice or default is a disaster because the BA is determined by self-votes by the Answerer or by votes from a person with numerous user accounts!
As someone who has asked many good Q’s ,I find most of the answers chatty and casual rather than thoughtful and informative! When I do find the latter every so often, I do feel it makes asking the Q’s worthwhile!
I wish more people would explore the Q-side of the Q&A process because it is the more intellectually interesting and rewarding side. It would also improve you Answer other people’s Q’s!
Thumbs up on the blog subject, but I feel there’s something missing here. How about explaining the difference between voting and rating? You must be aware of the confusion that affects many many users, right?
As for the points for voting, it’s ok to mention them, but please let’s not put too much emphasis on the “profit” aspect. Many questions are undecided because none of the answers are any good, and they deserved to be NBA’d into deletion.
Let’s hope people don’t refrain from voting NBA because they’re thinking of the points only.
And BTW, Nunyabidness has a good point, as you well know… what about the accurate timestamps we’ve been asking you to put back in every post? Wherever did that piece of code hide?
Anyway, thanks for keeping up the work, guys and gals
I joined the answer group about a month ago.
I have read “Best answers” that did not even answer the question.
On the whole, the group provides a valuable resource, but clearly, some people are very competive with their levels and points.
I think that only the asker ask vote for the best answer. If the asker does not log on and check their answer (maybe a 2 week period) within a reasonable time period, The question and all answers should be deleted. This would do away with “smart aleck quip” voted as the best answer.
I did notice that “top contributor” answers get the “best answer” when clearly it was not.
As stated earlier, Many people give alot of thought into the answers, in hopes that it would help the asker.
homer
I think that you could have levels 6 and 7 voting more than 100 a day and that would help. I personally try to vote my limit every day to cut down on tie votes. I am part of Tie Busters.
I do vote NBA when it is the best answer. I just hate see the questions pile up. I think it is because we have so many kids asking homework questions and they run out of points and just make more accounts. Since all they want is their homework done for them, they never vote best answer.
I find putting a question to vote is a very ineffective and useless way to choose a best answer. In almost all the questions I’ve put to vote, the most stupid, irrelevant, offensive, and useless answer was “voted” as best. That’s why I criticize the put to vote option.
All someone has to do is look back through all the answers they’ve given, find a post that’s still “in voting”, vote for their own biased answer and ta da, 10 points. Not only that but sometimes when you put a question to vote, you will never see it again. I put this one question to vote roughly six months ago and I still haven’t heard from it.
So yeah, I’m not very found of questions being put to vote.
Actually, putting questions up to vote is better than letting them expire, especially in categories with less activity. The question stays on the top of the voting list for a longer time, so more people vote, making it less likely that the best answer gets chosen by someone voting for him/herself.
why is the cookies was so bandles in the computer and some ruined the pc?hoe coyuld you control the microsft not having intalled a tons of there files and why is to slow?
its reallly so hard to take a comment that you gonna hurt somebodies business.but if i will not say something so many person could always hurt.yeah is not good to know the thing but your not worthy if you nothing.question is a lot and its open but answer was not eassy to put into words.if am siding to voting its complecated and a part of this program is to risky.thanks!
“The experience of putting a question to the community and seeing the answers flowing to your inbox is gratifying. And picking the ultimate answer for your question gives you the opportunity to share the outcome of your query with millions of people.”
Who the hell are they trying to fool? I know they want their website to come across as amazing, insightful, and educational, but for most it’s a form of entertainment used to pass time.
There are some Askers who think they get more points by letting a q go to a vote. That has to be corrected.
Some Askers in R&S just want to get people thinking.
Some Askers are so busy handling the Abuse reports that they simply can’t keep track of everything.
How about adding a separate Tab (like the Best Answer Tab) so we can go directly to In Voting q’s.
I think it would help tremendously if, when a question moves to tie-breaker status, only the answers tied for first remain as a choice. That way, it’d be “sudden death.” One vote and it’s decided. The way it is, especially if a question has lots of answers, it can go on for months.
One major flaw I see with Yahoo Answers is the ability of people to vote on questions they answered. In several areas this lets people falsely increase their “Best Answer” Ratio by voting on questions no one else has voted on, or even cares about. During my visits to Answers I do my best to give an informed answer to most questions, and tried to figure out how some of these people in the rankings could have answered thousands of questions with a best answer ratio of over 50% and somtimes up to 70%. It just doesn’t seem possible.
well, when i get new answers, it doesn’t actually go to my email…so….