how does the amount of stars work with yahoo!answers? can someone tell me where to find this out?

the stars from the best answers are the asker's appreciation of your quality answer..

the stars you are looking for ,are the stars received when you post a question and other users mark it as an interesting question

The yellow stars are for interesting questions, so if people starred your question it would be beside it, the green stars when you get a best answer just mean how helpful your answer was to the asker, 1 meaning not very helpful to 5 meaning very helpful, you can see the green stars on each of your best answers.

Stars don't mean a thing. It's just a way for some people to show that they thought your question was an interesting one. Stars have no value, don't add to or take away from your points, so worrying about how many stars you have is really pointless.

If you still have doubts about the "stars" look it up in the Community Guidelines.

Gold Stars are to indicate you think a question is good, or to bring it to the attention of your contacts.

You can use it to keep track of certain questions.

These count.

The green ones only tell you how the Questioner rates your answer, and do not get recorded..

You are confusing stars and thumbs. Neither of them give you any points though.