Answering questions 'First'?

You can't avoid it entirely, as some people submit their answers while you're typing.

You could try refreshing or reloading (or whatever your browser calls it) before clicking Big Blue.

Or you could do what I do.

I "right-click" the question, and have it open in a new window, which I put in my dock.

Then I go through those, refreshing and reading before I answer.

The other thing you can do is sort the list of questions, first by number of answers, then reverse sort, then by time submitted, then reverse sort that.

(Or maybe you do time first, then number of answers; sorry, it's been so long, I forget.)

Whichever one works, you'll be looking at oldish unanswered questions.

These people really need the help, as no one has answered them, and they are long off the front pages.

Doing all this from Home will give you all questions, doing it from a favorite category will give you old unanswereds from that category.

d

okay let me let the 'cat out of the bag'

saw what I just did? I only pressed a character (d) hurried up and press the preview button then the submit button. allowed this process to carry through and came back and edited my submission.

This is called Place Holding and might eventually be a violation in Yahoo's Community Guidelines. Other than me confessing there's no way of proving that I did it.

reading other submissions before you answer: just wait and check the question until it has received some answers.

........................edit...........................

You're not wasting your time, if you duplicate or somewhere in the middle of the list because RANKING of answers depends on the ASKER and how they decide to rank answers. So If the ASKER rearranges the listing of answers from Newest to Oldest that will put the first answerer now @ the bottom.

You can refresh the page so that those answers appear. You can't avoid them since most of the great questions have been answered already except those that people think about as boring or those that doesn't interest them.

Don't resort to squatting since everyone gets their two points as long as you answer the question(correctly or according to your best knowledge). Don't say you 'wasted' your time since answering a question based in your knowledge is different than everyone else's. Enjoy answering as long as you are helping.

The next time you see a suspicious, real short answer, take an immediate print screen/paint screen capture of it and save it to your folder. If you later see that the answer has been expanded, without stating that the new info has been edited in, also take a screen capture of of the new expanded answer, then host them both on a free photo hosting site, then click on "Report Abuse" under the abusers post, and report him for violating the rules against squatting, and include the links to the before and after screen captures.

That happens to me daily. Some of it is certainly everyone answering at the same time. It can't be avoided really. You can try scrolling down in the main page till you reach answers.

what Jerome and misingnoglic have suggested is a violation, it is called " squatting" and considered to be point gaming.

when you view a question b4 you answer it refresh your browser.

OK, Here is how you do it! First, put like 1 letter as ur answer and hurry up, cause other people will answer soon.

Then, edit it, and you will keep ur spot...

This happens b/c u take too long to answer ur questions... and others answer b4 u...