Why do creative questions receive a higher quantity and quality of answers than useful fact based questions?

I think it's because people have more fun with the creative questions. They know that anyone can get "fact based" answers by doing an Internet search. Why not have fun with the more creative questions. As to how Yahoo can improve this, they could pay someone to answer the questions as google does http://answers.google.com/answers/ Of course then we would have to start paying for our answers.

I know what you mean. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=ApNsG...

Seriously, I put up a question that I pretty much knew NO ONE would answer. I did it just because it is a valuable question that a friend of mine is looking for an answer to. I said, "OK. Someone in this world could answer this, because someone has access to the information. I don't know where to look. Let's put it out there." So, I did. http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Aknvn...

No Answer! Not even a comment or idea for finding the answer. Granted, it is a tough question that would need some research, but if I was able to find the answer for someone, I would do the research.

So, what is the value of the forum if not to find answers to difficult questions? http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=AqFXo... Is it just for fun? Or is there a purpose?

So, the answer to your question might be: Creative questions (and questions about social life) receive more answers because it is less work to give an opinion than a factual answer.

What could Yahoo! do to improve this? Suppose in the higher levels, say 4, 5, 6... Y! Answerers are given the opportunity to rate people/answers on their usefulness? How helpful was this answer to the person asking the question? And how about if we were, in the higher levels, allowed to rate the questions on their value? Yes, it would be subjective, but it might encourage critical thinking and objective analysis in the question/answer process.

Tough question! I think that as long as people are free to sign on for whatever purpose they individually have in mind - becoming informed, solving a problem, being entertained, building a social network, goofing off, etc.- Yahoo questions staff have to accept that all of those are legitimate purposes and give credit for answers that people appreciate. Any system that attempted to rate answer quality in some other way would be just as arbitrary. We have the power to shape this site by what we choose to ask and what we choose to answer and rate. People don't have to be expert to provide an interesting answer to many of the creative, opinion-based questions so they are more tempting to answer if you lack an area of special knowledge or skill or if you lack the confidence to put yourself out there on a question where the quality of the answer has consequences for the asker. It's just an opinion and worth about what it cost.

I like home schooling mothers answer. Most people assume when you say "fact based" that you mean, "what is the capital of vermont?" when I think of it differently. I think a fact based or useful question comes in the form of something other than "Do you think my avatar is sexy?" Quite honestly, I could see a question with a link to the real person attached to the questions, "Do you find me attractive?" more useful than the previous. I mean, you're not just talking about opinions...it is what I consider SPAM. It is a waste of space. "Is my avatar sexy?" I mean come on...who comes up with that? It is a cartoon for goodness sakes!

I like some of the ideas on having rankings based on usefullness. I still like the "moderator" idea that I have expressed in several of my other questions and answers. People who are trained and designated as moderators. Still allowed to answer, but in charge of moving things to appropriate categories, deleting the obscene, and watching the overall health of the questions. And then having those categories that are basically "useless" opinions and not giving points for answering things that fall under that. Likewise, answering a questions with a "Haha! Thanks for the 2 points" should also be banned. If you are going to have a service like this, and reward people for "answering" questions, you need to have a way of making sure the people are really doing their best to provide something useful and/or at least entertaining. Not a bunch of avatar and kiddie spam.

I think because fact based questions can be found in search sites. The fun ones tend to recieve more answers because people use this site for entertainment and not research. Some questions and answers can be interesting just to see what people's opinions are. Some of the questions are soooo nutty, they actually make me laugh and wonder how can some people function with such distorted minds.

Fact based questions are hard to answer unless you happen to know something about that subject. Most of the other questions involve some kind of opinion, and we all know EVERYONE has one of those on just about every subject. Fact questions also tend to seem like they only have one answer so maybe people don't want to restate what's already been said.

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I don't answer a lot of those simple facts questions because I think to myself, "They have a computer, they can do their own internet search. Why are they asking here?"

How many ways are there to answer "how much is 1+1?"

I don't think it's broken so there is no need to fix it.

Because imagination is everything.

Imagination is more than knowlodge.

if you can imagine it, you can do it!