Are you less inclined to answer a question when the asker has a history of not choosing a best answer?

My focus is not to garner points ~Which can not be used at my favorite shoe store, or anywhere else for that matter~ but instead to try to be of help to those in need. I think this is a reward in and of itself regardless of the questioner's reputation.

Good question.

No, not really.

I don't usually check the Asker's history before responding, except in very special cases, e.g. if I plan to write a long elaborate answer that will take me some time.

Even so, I may go ahead and answer anyway; if it doesn't serve the Asker because they never come back, at least it will serve me (it's good practice) and others who may come looking for the same question.

But checking the Asker's history is something that I do advise others to do (I even included a comment about it in my unofficial YA tutorial), especially if they're easily frustrated with voting outcomes. We all know that some awful answers can win the votes, or even worse, the Question could end up as a tiebreaker for ever and ever.

And to answer your other questions, I usually answer them, like I said.

And I don't think the voting option is the problem. Many users don't know that they're supposed to pick a Best Answer, many others don't know how (or they confuse rating, voting and selecting the BA), and yet others don't care. There's nothing Yahoo can do about the latter, but there's surely a lot that could be done for the former.

Yahoo! Answers still doesn't have even the most basic tutorial for new users, something that I think would be extremely useful.

To add to the problem, too few users vote, and consequently voted BAs are just as biased as the Asker's choice might be.

Wild Thang is right, but I doubt multiple accounts would stop if the 'boo-boo' was corrected. It would only mean one less vote to someone who will give others no chance.

I usually don't check asker history. I just answer the question as helpfully as I can. The asker can have 100% resolved questions, with none of them selected by the asker. All too bothersome if my answer is going to be short and sweet.

More often than not, voting outcomes are bad. In a Math question, there were three right answers, and one wrong answer. The wrong one was selected as Best by the Asker. In another question which I answered, another wrong answer was selected and the Asker wrote in comments: "First answer = Best answer." It's not like Askers are all that trustworthy either. I'd rather the questions go to vote if this happens consistently.

Many askers put something like a dot in the comments. They dont care who gets the 10 points, they just want the three points.

I don't think much effort goes into the choosing of Best Answer. Sometimes the "asker" will choose an answer as Best Answer and then ridicule the person with an added comment. I think all that goes to prove that YA is used by such a wide variety of folks, we can't even guess what motivates them. Consider this a way to fight boredom and do not hope for excellence in the exchange of information.

I don't look who the asker of a question is, unless I need to go to his profile for purposes of understanding something more about the question that I want to answer. If a question is interesting, then it doesn't matter who asks it. I post a reply if I think it would help.

It is also too much to research the past history of an asker, just to decide whether a question should be answered or not. I would rather spend the time to research the question itself.

The answer to questions are not just for the asker's benefit. A lot of other people, including answerers and others who may not participate in YA, may be interested in reading the answers to gain some insight.

I'm not sure if I can agree on that or not.

In some cases, I would pass over a question where it seems that the poster doesn't even bother reading the answers.

But in other cases, there is the possibility that the answers are read and that each one is as brilliant as the last and right on topic.

So it would be difficult to decide which answer to give the ten points to, when all the other anwers are just as good.

I know I've been in this situation... Twice. I left the answer open to be decided amongst the community because I myself, couldn't make the decision.

No, I am not. Some of the best questions are from Users who let their questions go to Vote because they merely ask so many questions.

The questions that I skip over are those where it appears to be a Level 1 person, especially ones with a negative point score. To me that says "Troll".

I also do not answer those questions where I have an objection to the Avatar photo or Avatar nickname. It's just my preference.

I don't pay attention to the personality of the user whose question I answer. That would take long, and honestly is a waste of my time. Truthfully, I rarely, if ever, pay attention to the name or anything else about the user. I simply answer their question.

I o hate it, though, when I want to see a users profile and they have their answers on private! That's just annoying!!

Every once in a while I may first look at a new members profile to see their history but more time than not I just answer if I can and let the rest take care of itself.

I think one of the biggest Boo-Boos yahoo ever made was allowing members to vote for their own answers, now we have members exploiting the system using multiple accounts to vote for their answers and believe me, I have seen some stupid answers "Voted by the Community" chosen.

I only let it go to voting if noone bothered to answer the question properly and the only answers there dont deserve 10 points

But i do always read the answers, and keep refreshing the pages every 5secs to see if i have any new answers lol