Can I trust most "Top Contributors" or Top 10 Answerers on Pets>Fish for reliable answers? I have my doubts!
All but one active top 10 hide their questions and answers. Many top contributors seem to win mostly questions put to a vote, not get awarded best answer by the asker. It is silly to see four or five votes for a question that only has 2-3 answers. Seems pretty suspicious. I can't believe the number of thumbs ups and thumbs down I see. Obviously there is a "war" going on and a lot of cheating too. Makes ALL of you look bad if you ask me, even if you don't do this.
Then you have all these profiles with links to other web sites. You have one "top ten" who basically trashes this whole system in his profile. What a nasty, negative person!
I have come here for answers. What I see is childish ego wars and people who know very little getting notoriety. I only can think of a small minority who seem to be here to actually help something besides their ego... Correct me if I'm wrong.
da bandit2008-06-24T12:20:51Z
Favorite Answer
I definitely agree with you, I've been trashed on here before, and I noticed a lot of thumbs down given to me, it's like a war, but I'm not here to try and beat anyone and everyone, I am here to try and help people, not to win points, I could care less if I do win points or not.
These forums was created to express everyones questions and knowledge, these forums was not made to joke around, act silly, or to fight one another. I hope people don't take offense to this, but it's true, these forums was designed to help people have a better understanding of the subject.
As for top contributors and top 10 best answers, well, what can I say? But most people whom gets voted instead of getting chosen by the asker of the question, this happens due to either the asker is busy and hasn't had time to choose, or it's because the asker is undecided on whom the best answer is and let the votes take place for them to decide.
I Do believe in a fair system, and I don't believe in having wars with one another, so if anyone wants a war with me, I'll just let em win.
So I believe if my answer is right then all means better for the person that I'm helping, but if people don't agree with me, then give me a thumbs down, I don't really care if I do get a thumbs down, my goal is to help as many people as I can so that they can be successful in the subject that they are interested in learning.
Thank you for asking and have a nice day.............
Edit: upwardly, I give you a thumbs up for that one..........
You know, this very question in itself is technically a violation of community guidelines. While I can see you are simply expressing your point of view, the manner, wording and tone in which you are expressing it is clearly geared towards inflaming and inciting others. If you have these concerns, and you're clearly not even asking a question more then ranting, (violation number 2) you need to be taking that up with YA and not on here. Saying what you are saying is nothing many don't already know and one of the biggest reasons I direct people to other forums where "voting" and popularity don't deter from actually sharing and gaining knowledge. This place, no matter how well the answers are put never accomplishes that as to the very things you've pointed out.
If YA were truly interested in a system made to promote accurate information exchange, and not something made that everyone who's allowed on the internet without parental supervision can be an "expert", then they wouldn't even have a voting system, which I personally do not like. Voting is no way able to determine a best answer, it's simply an answer that's "popular" is all. I could just as well answer a question of "what color is the moon?" and say white, and have someone say blue, totally inaccurate, yet have 10,000,000 contact friends that will vote for him. My point there is, the votes can support every wrong answer as much as the right one and the whole system should be eliminated. While even an asker can pick what they WANT to hear vs what the truth is, at least it eliminates the vote hogs like you are saying. This isn't nothing I haven't already brought up in the main forum of yahoo itself but noone there wants to hear or believe in that anyways.
That fact you are using a level 1 id, brand new leads me to think this isn't your main ID. I'm not going to state that as a fact, but when you say that "I have come here for answers. What I see is childish ego wars and people who know very little getting notoriety." and discover this "amazing secret" many have known a long time so fast, tells me you aren't new to this YA thing. While this place is far from perfect, I really dislike people that hide under a different ID to say or ask something they are afraid their higher ranked ID's would get penalized for. So once again, all any one individual can do is to simply answer what you know, and try. When that falls on deaf ears, trolls cause more disruptions to boost their overwheeming online ego's, and others just plain don't even know what they are talking about, there's really no reason not to direct an asker who clearly is looking for information, to a more professional forum that has live moderators to weed out the garbage and riff raff.
Well, you really only asked one question so I will answer that. In a word, yes! I find that the top ten give answers that are intelligent, thoughtful and accurate. Sometimes, they may give an answer that the ask-er does not want to hear, but that doesn't mean that the answer is incorrect or unreliable. One such subject is piscine husbandry. Many of the top ten TC's answer is a balance of experience, knowledge, and ethics. I can say over the past year that I have seen answers from TCs that right on target. Even some that made me reconsider my stance on a particular subject and do a little more homework myself. The rest of your "question" is all opinion. You can't correct an opinion. I will however state that I do not agree with your opinion about the active top ten in the fish section. In my opinion, you are wrong. But, that's just my opinion and we all know that opinions are like butts. Some are just easier to stare at than others. I would also like to offer some free advice from me to you just for fun. Rather than rant, why not just log off? It could keep your blood pressure down a few points. :)
I agreee with what chetco said..... and upwardly and some of the others.
although I must admit I vote for my own and my networks questions unless there is a better answer and then I vote for the better answer. Which happens a lot. I love it when someone answers better than me... I use the thumbs up adn down a bit and am considereing not using it at all..
My dad used to say advice is worth what you pay for it. I think the beuaty of this is that you can get a ariety of answeres and gain some sort of sense of what to do in a situation or where to go to find more info...... whatever.
I've been on lots of websites as a contributor or discussion person and they all have downsides. there are always trolls or stupid know it alls etc. You just take what you can that is good and ignore all the junk tha tyou can.
EDIT TO ADD: OH and I like the best when the asker chooses a best answer... but it sometimes just doens'thappen. So I guess the thing to do is ASK the question in your fish category.... read the answers and look at who is answering and what their responses usually are and go from there. Trust with verification as Pres. Reagan used to say.
Hi, couldn't agree with you more on the face of it but with the best will in the world the free-for-all that is the internet where anyone can be or claim to be anyone else will pollute anything. That said, in my time on here the only 'Top Contributors' that are not up their task don't seem to last very long. I also used to think people who hid their details had something to hide but there is a legitimate reason for doing this if someone is out to get you.
You add in the problems from asking questions on an open forum where every Tom, Dick, Harry & Troll can have their say & you have an instant recipe for disaster. In my opinion all the top long serving contributors on this section know their stuff, are helpful, friendly, polite & very willing to help & like myself have a passion for helping fish & fish keepers which unfortunately usually means trying to stop newcomers killing their fish with ignorance. I would happily take advice from any one of them. The problems with giving good & helpful answers to often vague & frantically written questions are we can at best only give an educated guess so things will sometimes not be ideal but we can only work with the material we are given.
If I had to give only one piece of advice to anyone who comes on here for the first time it would be to join a properly moderated fish keeping forum.