If you get just one answer to your question, why don't you give the points?

The majority of these questions are by people who were just trying Yahoo! Answers the one time - not regular users. If you look at their profiles, usually they will only have the one question asked.

By default, the answer is sent to them by email so, even though there are links to go to the question and vote for the answer as best, the asker never is required to do so.

However, if you have anything at all to add to the question you can do so and it will automatically go to a vote for the next day and finally get resolved after the seven-day voting period has passed.

On Yahoo! Answers, there must be two answers to a question before it comes up for a vote. That's because a single-question vote isn't really much of a vote! Single answers may be chosen as Best Answers by the asker after the first 24 hours.

However, if there's only one answer and the asker doesn't choose it as Best Answer, then the question simply stays unresolved. Currently, the system does not automatically declare such an answer to be the Best Answer. (However, since we designed this aspect of Answers, users have suggested such a feature. We might revisit our decision.) Yes, we do send out reminder e-mails to owners of questions.

As has been mentioned, many first-time users experiment with Answers and then lose interest. We expect this; no website can fit _everyone_'s tastes. But, a side-effect is that these users never return to resolve their questions. If you're the only one to have answered such a question, you're ill-served by the asker's desertion of that question.

To remedy this situation, and give users the chance to enjoy it, we've used the blog to direct their attention to older unresolved questions. You can find them, and add a second response, by using the Advanced Search feature. You get 2 answering points, the question goes to a vote, and both you and the original answerer get a shot at 10 points for Best Answer.

By the way, we give 24 hours for everybody respond to a question, so you'll get more information. Although some first answers are the best answers, other people may want to offer their knowledge as well. Hope this clears things up for you!

remember you can't vote "best answer" until 24 hrs...but i agree after a day you usually don't get many more answers so be nice and just reward that one person....i try to do that....

its a new system give it some time. and the Jurassic Park theory was good but not correct

I think there will be revisions and corrections as the system ages.