Rating down an answer does not improve it, though wouldn't it be better if you could comment on one?
Instead of the rating system, each answer you can comment on and either add on to it or disprove it.
The rating system as of now is rigged as it makes me look bad all the time even though I give legitament answers.
If you have a probelem with my answer then comment on it, rating it down does not help me nor the asker.
If only this feature was installed. It would be similar to commenting on a question.
2010-05-10T06:47:36Z
Flaming could be prevented if the comments had a report abuse system.
Also I don't think poster would be able to comment on his own answer thus making the flame war one sided.
?2010-05-10T07:56:49Z
Favorite Answer
I noticed this in the Travel Germany category. There seems to be one person or a group of people with more than 100 bogus memberships, who continue to award themselves best answers all the time, with consistant thumbs up. No wonder most of the "members" there have "best answer" statistics for over 80%! It's easy to be right all the time if you ask and answer your own questions.
What really stinks is when he/she or they gain up on other members, edit and attack other members answers, and give them more than a hundred negative ratings. Funny how this doesn't happen in most of the other categories.
If they really have a pet peeve with you because they disagree with your answers, and they manage to find the webaddress for your profile, they will copy your avatar and screen name and mock it. For example if your screen name is "Tom" then they open up a mirror profile with something like "Tom with the limp dick". No matter how often you change your avatar and screen name they will change theirs to match it.
I don't appreciate this any more than other members do. And like you, I think that the rating system is bogus, because it's become a free-for-all for system-rigging-trolls.
Besides what intrinsic value is in a question like "What's the best flavor ice cream?" That's more like a poll than a question, isn't it? And thanks to rigging you can get 5 answers with people answering "vanilla", whereas only "Donna B." receives 15 thumbs up and everyone else recieves 35+ thumbs down. Why? Because "Donna B." had the "best answer"? And the other four people had the very same answer (opinion), do their answers "suck"? Makes thumbs look ridiculous, doesn't it? Is there even a "best answer" in this case?
Actually the only valuable decision, is asking the questioner to vote for the best answer - not the rigged jury that can win hands down when they have 100+ bogus Yahoo memberships.
I don't think comments would be much use. They would only allow the trolls to call you names or insult your intelligence.
And why this "all" or nothing schemata? What if someone asked a question like "What caused the War of Roses", and four people contributed portions of valid information, but each left something out the other person covered. Isn't all of the information usually interesting and worthwhile? What if a fifth person added just another small portion the others forgot to mention, but because he didn't want to be redundant he didn't repeat the above mentioned. Partial answers don't get the winner points?
I got snapped at in answer edits buy other members in which I gave a complete answer, including everything the other person mentioned plus more information, without even have read the other persons answer. Usually I get accused of "copying" the other person's answers, even if I didn't do anything but write my own answer based on web info. And what did the first person do? Google it! 95% of the time! So, who is copying whom?
If you open the answers to comments, then I would say, restrict it to comments from the questioner ONLY, and not other members. Otherwise the flame war would keep Yahoo working as full-time firemen, despite abuse reporting options.
Of course, this is one of those questions again. Is there really a "best answer" or a "right answer" to your question, when you are asking for my opinion?
Here's the problem. Yahoo Answers very specifically does NOT want this to be simply another Discussion Board or chat site. Any type of commenting would simply lead to that type of situation.
Adding a 'report abuse' system won't stop the flaming; it will simply cause more abuse of the report abuse system. And since the poster can simply 'add details' to his question to comment (as many already do), the flame war would run out of control.
This type of thing already happens in some sections, even without any type of comment system. People come back and edit, point out errors in answers above & below, and start ranting and flaming at each other. Legitimatizing this situation with the ability to 'comment' would only make it hundreds of times worse.
What the staff needs to do is what they did with questions: You can star or you can report. That's it. Do the same for answers.
I've seen a number of answer's i'd very much like to be able to comment on, ether to point out an error in what they have said (such as i saw one guy telling the op that the i7 processors at 7 cores o.0), or to simply add additional relevant details too.
Not entire sure why yahoo answers is not in favor of such a feature as it would in theory result in a better answer for the op in the long run. I suppose the downside is that it would also make augments and flaming possible within a thread which would be a bit of an increase to the mods work load.
Still, i'd still rather like to have said feature :)
Yes, something like what Youtube did (prior to the interface update) on threading someone else's comment clearly shows who they're replying to. Thumbs up/down does jack.