Cast your vote
Recently, many of you wrote to us about unresolved questions, and questions that are in tiebreaker status on the site. The best way to make sure none of your questions remain unresolved is to pick a Best Answer yourself, or put it up for voting. Here is an overview of how the voting process works.
Voting for Best Answer
When a question is posted, it initially remains open for four days, but can be extended for a total of eight days.
- If two or more answers are collected, you can either pick the Best Answer yourself, or let the community vote to choose the Best Answer. If you take no action to resolve the question, the answers are automatically put to a vote by the community. The asker of the question does not have the option of selecting “No Best Answer”– only the community has this power.
- If your question receives only one answer, you can extend the open period for four additional days to allow more time for answers to be posted, or you can pick No Best Answer. If your question expires with only one answer, it automatically goes to a vote, with No Best Answer as the second option that voters can pick. If the answer wins the vote, your question becomes resolved. However, if the No Best Answer option wins the vote, the question is automatically deleted and you get five points credited back to your Answers account.
- If a question doesn’t receive any answers in the allotted time, it expires and is deleted.
A question becomes a Resolved Question when a Best Answer is chosen, and then it remains available on Yahoo! Answers for searching and browsing. The Best Answer remains open to receive comments and ratings from the community.
How do I put my question up for voting?
If you take no action and the question expires, it automatically goes to a vote. Or:
- Wait at least four hours after posting the question.
- Go to the question within the open period, before it expires.
- Click Edit in the action bar below the question.
- Select Ask for a Vote in the edit menu.
How do I find questions up for voting?
- Go to the category of your choice.
- Select the In Voting tab.
- Sort the unresolved questions as you like.
What’s a tiebreaker?
If the vote ends in a tie, your question remains in voting as a tiebreaker until a Best Answer is determined. There are tons of questions out there waiting to be voted on because they’re in tiebreaker status. Vote so you can get these questions resolved.
As you can see, voting makes a huge difference. If you choose a subject area that you’re an expert in, you can easily vote for the Best Answer. But even if you choose a category you don’t know much about, you’ll still end up learning a lot by reading the answers. And you can still pick the Best Answer, based on detail, helpful tone, and general quality, without having to be an expert in the subject area.
Have more questions? Let us know.
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Hey team, thanks for doing like I suggested and posting a blog about this!! Hopefully this’ll encourage more people to vote on unresolved questions!!
Great post Blog Team!!!
The YAT should also note that there is a special Yahoo Tech group called the Tiebusters whose sole mission is to focus on particular categories and break ties that are up to 2 YEARS old
See their site at: http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/Yah00AnswersTieBusters/
Your discourse did not really tell how to resolve the pile-up of unresolved questions because from what I have perceived – most questioners seem to abandon their questions and few make a selection. But then, often as not many do not know enough about the topic to recognize an actually “best answer” anyway.
The other issue is that there is no qualification whatever for the “expert” so called, other than participation . “Top Contributer” status is a false certification of implied expertise. It is awarded for frequency of response, not accuracy.
I do like your code of conduct even though I have been nailed a couple times myself. In a previous Q&A site ( I recall that it was Ask Me ) there was an awful problem with insults and uncouth postings.
I would go into longer detail about the flaws
with voting and how many answers do not
particularly go to the “best” or most accurate
answer but to one with the most fake profiles
who can vote for himself to gain points instead
of actually answering the question to the best
of their ability… niether will I question the
askers who ask a particular question in hopes
of finding an answer to said question but then
turn around and not even bother to acknowledge
ANYONE’S answers – which in turn leaves the
question open for those that can vote for their
own answers – “Look up Google” or “I don’t know”
leaves me baffled as to how that answer got
chosen best when another person took the time
to go into vast detail an answer that takes up
half the page ….
There are flaws in the system that will
NEVER be addressed
BUT, as I stated earlier …. I will not go into detail
these problems here as the comments on these
blogs NEVER get noticed by any of the yahoo
staff that write these blogs ….
**
It seems a good way to resolve many tiebreakers would be to offer in the voting section a link option to choose the most recent and least recent questions in voting.
Most recent questions that go to vote are usually likely to get reolved, but on the other hand by adding a most/least recent option this would allow the users to vote on tiebreakers that may have yet to be resolved for many months, I’ve seen some questions 6 months or so still in voting and it appears these are the unresolved questions many users perhaps would like to see have the ties broken.
@Bumble – sorry you feel that way. We actually do read every comment, although we’re unable to respond to each one. I agree, the system isn’t perfect, but we continue to work on improvements. We also welcome your suggestions here and on the forum. Thanks for your input. Mitzi – Yahoo! Answers Editor
Constant vigilance! I’m a regular voter myself
I don’t mind rescuing a few Q’s from Yahoo purgatory, especially since several I’ve answered never get resolved. Oh well.
I agree with Bumble. More needs to be done to address the problems of people voting with multiple fake accounts- when you see a flippant or inane answer get 7 or 8 votes it tends to make a mockery of the whole voting system.
Personally if I take a lot of effort and do lots of research to answer someone’s question, and then the asker does not even bother to vote on best answer (either mine or anybody else’s) then I’ll not bother to answer any of that person’s questions ever again. To me that is just rude. The same goes for those trolls who repeatedly trumpet (in upper-case) ‘10 POINTS FOR BEST ANSWER!!!!!’ and then never bother to vote. I recently came across a user who had asked 10 questions in rapid succession and promised to do this for all 10! And were any of them voted on by the asker? Yeah right! I personally have a policy of ignoring all questions that promise points. Maybe it could become a reportable offence to promise points and then not deliver? It’s fraud, after all!
I think that Level 7 people should get more than the 100 votes that level 5 people get. We need to get more people voting so that questions don’t stay in voting limbo.
Yea! Tie Breakers are doing good work.
When I have a little spare time, I go to the oldest answers in cars and vote. I have wiped out many questions that were open for quite a while.
I think questions that have only one answer, that answer should be AUTOMATICALLY selected as BA.
Questions with no answer should be deleted but the asker should get those points back.
For more than one answer, I think the asker should be able to select a BA at ANY TIME during the voting process, upto a week after the question expires. If still no decision is made, or there is a tie, then the answer the the most (thumbs up minus thumbs down) should get the BA
I don’t know about anyone else, but for me, one of the most annoying thing about Yahoo Answers is when people don’t choose a Best Answer. You write a long, detailed answer and take the time to try to help someone…but then the asker NEVER choses a Best Answer. I don’t care who gets picked as the Best Answer, just as long as they chose someone!
Otherwise, we don’t even know whether they even bother to read the answers to their questions. Why take the time to write an answer and help someone if they don’t even bother reading it?
How about this…can YA add something to FORCE the asker to take some kind of action? Instead of automatically putting the question up to vote, when the question reaches the deadline, how about the next time the asker logs in they have to pick a Best Answer for their unresolved question before they can post any new ones.
Something needs to be done. YA can be a lot of fun, but sometimes I feel like we’re just being treated like a human encyclopedia. I would at least like to know that people are actually reading the answers. I think some kind of feature needs to be added so that the asker can’t post any questions or answers until they choose a Best Answer on their unresolved questions. And if they can’t pick a Best Answer, then set it up so that they actually have to select the “Put Question To Vote” option, rather than it being done automatically.
really funny thing ..yahoo answer i think looses there trust among the visiter..wy not wen they..changes too much..and people are really dislike dis things..now a days..so..pls change one more time ur page..and u got less value.. =))
why? sooner or later yahoo will cease the function of “answers” like they’ve done wtih a few other poorly thought out components… yahoo should have spent more time on their chat, to make it work, instead of more failed, unoriginal ideas.
wouldn’t you agree, isn’t it time you got back to what made yahoo popular instead of following the leaders?
I agree with Bumble on the fact that many resolved questions are horrifically wrong and that what gets voted the “best answer” is in fact the worst answer.
The only solution I can think of for this would be using a similar system to that which is already used to report abuse, except instead of reporting abuse users could report misleading/wrong answers. Because I have seen some serious wrong answers, ones about prescription medications that actually frighten me are out there because the answerer was so wrong that their advice was dangerous……and it was picked as best answer.
You mention that if two or more answers are collected, asker can pick Best Answer or let the community vote, but if there is only one answer, asker can extend the open period or pick No Best Answer. What about choosing that answer as Best Answer? I know I’ve done it one time, since that one answer was actually helpful. Shouldn’t you let people know they have that option too???
What is not covered here is the fact that you get 3 points back if you put your question to vote or pick your own Best Answer. It doesn’t seem to be much of an incentive to pick your own Best Answer when you will get 3 points either way.
Once a question is in tiebreaker, can you guys indicate somehow the two answers that are tied???? I have voted for several tiebreakers, only to choose an entirely different answer, and the question remains in tiebreaker. That’s part of the reason some Q’s go on forever unresolved. I would love to know the two answers that are tied and be able to choose the better one, and resolve the tie once and for all.
A tie busters group?!? So that explains why answers I gave over two years ago suddely pop up as “you got a best answer” e-mail every once in a while. Thanks for solving the mystery for me.
Most questions here in Yahoo Answers go to voting, which is depressing to answerers.
The main reason is that you must wait for a minimum of four hours to pick Best Answers. Most answers to come in the first hour. Askers get the right answer there and walk away.
You give up this four hour rule, then most of future unsolved questions will be solved in advance.
@Mitzi-Some possible suggestions: What about penalizing askers who don’t take any action after their question is answered? What about giving askers an option like “this answered my question”, or “this is what I needed,” or “None of these answers helped”? Then when the question is closed, send them an email reminding them to take action or lose points. What about making voting count for more points to get more of the community involved in voting.
Just some ideas..
The problem I see is so many askers never take action after they receive an answer, which is frustrating and unrewarding for answerers. Answerers just want some acknowledgement and feedback that they are helping the community.
u can vote for your own answers if u like. that’s what i do
Someone mentiond that some people answer questions picking their own answer just to get the points. Well I would like to think since I take the time to read and answer the question(s) that my answer would be the best. Some questions I don’t answer but do read and read the answers that others give and I do acknowledge if I think someone gave a good answer. So why isn’t it ok to think that you gave the best answer and get the points?
@cinger – thanks for the feedback. Some good ideas here – I’ll pass this on to the rest of the team. – Mitzi Yahoo! Answers Editor
@EliCash – good point. Will pass this on to the rest of the team. Thanks – Mitzi Yahoo! Answers Team
@Chris – thanks for the feedback. I’ll pass this on to the rest of the team – Mitzi Yahoo! Answers Editor
A welcomed and apropos blog post, thank you.
Before reality sets in… I sincerely hope that the authors who submit questions will read and heed the information presented in this blog post, especially those who, for whatever reason, consistently and willingly fail to fully participate in the process.
I particularly appreciate the comments posted by Bomba and Bumble; their criticisms highlight some of the repeated behavior and abuse I have witnessed. The persistent abuse of—and blatant contempt for—Yahoo! Answers’ policies and guidelines by far too many individuals, especially many of those authors who are bestowed with the “Top Answerers” honor, greatly detracts from Websites like Yahoo! Answers. (One of the more significant issues that I have witnessed of late is that many of the aforementioned “Top Answerers” within the subcategories of the greater Consumer Electronics category are persistently engaging in a ‘hit-and-run’ style of answering – answers that are frequently void of any substance, cogency and—in many cases—value.)
More often than not I feel disheartened, frustrated and dissuaded when participating; much of which would be easily alleviated or avoided if only the legitimate authors of questions would—along with exercising a modicum of common sense and effort—fully participate. This would significantly help to disempower many of the individuals whose primary agenda and purpose is thoroughly inconsistent with the spirit and intent of Yahoo! Answers.
RE: VOTING
This may have been mentioned but since I haven’t time to read every comment here, there is an option to select the oldest Answers in Voting, albeit lately it hasn’t been working properly:
At the top of the list of Unvoted or Tied Answers select “Oldest” (or Newest). This is what I’ve been doing and voting on Answers as far back as 3 years. This is the only way the Oldest Answers will become Resolved.
@ Yahoo Answers Team:
There’s a glitch where there are RESOLVED answers in the voting tab. I’m sure each category has this problem but to be specific in the Books & Authors section, from “page” 4 to about “page” 15 (from Oldest to Newest), almost all the questions have been resolved yet they still remain in the voting section.
It hasn’t been fixed just yet.
Addendum
I offer-up the following example to illustrate one of my primary grievances and frustrations: the (alleged) abuse of Yahoo! Answers Community Guidelines for the purpose of achieving “Top Answerer” status along with a high Best Answer percentage.
http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index?qid=20091014162907AAxCpzk
For the record the voting result is abnormal and extraordinarily uncharacteristic and for the given category.
As usual, more useless drivel coming from the same masters of ineptitude who brought Community Moderation into play and, as usual, Mitzi playing the role of cheerleader promising to “pass” all of these suggestions “on to the rest of the team”. Right! I’ll believe it when I see it. It is kind of hard to believe that this actually happens since all that the team has to show for all of its coffee breaks is a bunch of useless cosmetic changes.
The explanation of the voting process is unnecessary. Anybody with an iota of intelligence can basically figure out how to vote on answers and you send e-mails and post reminders on the site warning of the questions impending expiration.
Penalizing people for not picking a BA is bulls**t. Some of us have jobs, real friends, and lives outside of Y Answers. A couple of years ago I posted a question that had to go to the community for vote. Reason being, my aunt had died after a long battle with cancer. I’m sorry I didn’t choose a best answer but I was kind of busy with grieving, traveling, and being there for my family. Resolving a question was the furthest thing from my mind and I should be penalized?? Please! There are already to many things being penalized around here. I’m sorry but my life is not going to revolve around Yahoo Answers.
@Mitzi – you have wrong information in this entry.
Please see:
http://suggestions.yahoo.com/detail/?prop=answers&fid=72063
http://suggestions.yahoo.com/detail/?prop=answers&fid=156729
Will someone please also make corrections to the Help pages in regards to that wrong info? And please fix those old 360 links too.
Thanks.
@Hold The Presses! – looking into it now. Thanks – Mitzi Yahoo! Answers Editor
@tc – Hi tc – Yes, we are aware of this glitch and are currently working on a fix. Also, several community members have noted it in the forums, so feel free to go there for updates. Thanks, Mitzi Y! Answers Editor
I see a problem. It says you can sort the voting list any way you want like sort by oldest questions first or newest questions first. One would expect that after clicking on the “in voting” green tab and this so-called “sort by”, one would find a contiguous list of pages after pages of questions sorted by one of the “sort by” links selected. If I click on sort the list by oldest questions first, I would like to see the oldest questions on top of page 1 and the questions getting YOUNGER or more recent going down the page and on the next pages. So say I click on page number 46 for example, would show me practically the newest questions. The reverse is also true if I click the link to sort by newest questions first, I would like to see the questions getting older as I go down the list and down the pages. But what I’m seeing in reality is just the opposite of what I should be seeing. The links to sort the list in Descending or Ascending order are not working right.
Other thing is I make sure the voting tab is selected, I click on a question and find the question is “resolved”.
One thing I don’t mind is not being able to see the voting results on first glance of the question. I don’t care if I cast the first vote for an answer. Usually like 2/3 of the time I DID break the tie and resolved the question. But I have seen a lot of resolved questions under the In Voting tab and possibly vice versa.
And I am a member of the Tiebusters group someone mentioned earlier in this blog. I used to spend hours voting voluntarily or “for the group” but I’ve stopped spending so many hours. I used to enjoy voting but not any more. I have posted suggestions about voting on the Suggestion board and like only one person posts after I.
And I’m very sorry that this is such a long post, but I have a verbal disability that causes such detailed posts. You should see some of the answers I post on Answers.
It’s getting better now. I wrote above this that clicking on the link that says sort by oldest or youngest should return a list with all the questions that are in voting. That seems to be the case but yesterday I divided the number of questions in voting by 20 and tried to click on a very high page number and the higher the page number, yesterday that is, the more likely to get a page which shows only 1 question.
I think that got resolved this morning.
But I still see resolved questions under the in voting tab. Mostly just questions on the 1st page when the list is sorted by oldest questions first. Why aren’t questions that are resolved by voting not migrating to the resolved tab?
Does Yahoo REALLY want us members to go voting? Then why won’t Answers fix their glitches with voting? Please Yahoo, fix the voting problems.