Can I trust most "Top Contributors" or Top 10 Answerers on Pets>Fish for reliable answers? I have my doubts!

I definitely agree with you, I've been trashed on here before, and I noticed a lot of thumbs down given to me, it's like a war, but I'm not here to try and beat anyone and everyone, I am here to try and help people, not to win points, I could care less if I do win points or not.

These forums was created to express everyones questions and knowledge, these forums was not made to joke around, act silly, or to fight one another. I hope people don't take offense to this, but it's true, these forums was designed to help people have a better understanding of the subject.

As for top contributors and top 10 best answers, well, what can I say? But most people whom gets voted instead of getting chosen by the asker of the question, this happens due to either the asker is busy and hasn't had time to choose, or it's because the asker is undecided on whom the best answer is and let the votes take place for them to decide.

I Do believe in a fair system, and I don't believe in having wars with one another, so if anyone wants a war with me, I'll just let em win.

So I believe if my answer is right then all means better for the person that I'm helping, but if people don't agree with me, then give me a thumbs down, I don't really care if I do get a thumbs down, my goal is to help as many people as I can so that they can be successful in the subject that they are interested in learning.

Thank you for asking and have a nice day.............

Edit: upwardly, I give you a thumbs up for that one..........

You know, this very question in itself is technically a violation of community guidelines. While I can see you are simply expressing your point of view, the manner, wording and tone in which you are expressing it is clearly geared towards inflaming and inciting others. If you have these concerns, and you're clearly not even asking a question more then ranting, (violation number 2) you need to be taking that up with YA and not on here. Saying what you are saying is nothing many don't already know and one of the biggest reasons I direct people to other forums where "voting" and popularity don't deter from actually sharing and gaining knowledge. This place, no matter how well the answers are put never accomplishes that as to the very things you've pointed out.

If YA were truly interested in a system made to promote accurate information exchange, and not something made that everyone who's allowed on the internet without parental supervision can be an "expert", then they wouldn't even have a voting system, which I personally do not like. Voting is no way able to determine a best answer, it's simply an answer that's "popular" is all. I could just as well answer a question of "what color is the moon?" and say white, and have someone say blue, totally inaccurate, yet have 10,000,000 contact friends that will vote for him. My point there is, the votes can support every wrong answer as much as the right one and the whole system should be eliminated. While even an asker can pick what they WANT to hear vs what the truth is, at least it eliminates the vote hogs like you are saying. This isn't nothing I haven't already brought up in the main forum of yahoo itself but noone there wants to hear or believe in that anyways.

That fact you are using a level 1 id, brand new leads me to think this isn't your main ID. I'm not going to state that as a fact, but when you say that "I have come here for answers. What I see is childish ego wars and people who know very little getting notoriety." and discover this "amazing secret" many have known a long time so fast, tells me you aren't new to this YA thing. While this place is far from perfect, I really dislike people that hide under a different ID to say or ask something they are afraid their higher ranked ID's would get penalized for. So once again, all any one individual can do is to simply answer what you know, and try. When that falls on deaf ears, trolls cause more disruptions to boost their overwheeming online ego's, and others just plain don't even know what they are talking about, there's really no reason not to direct an asker who clearly is looking for information, to a more professional forum that has live moderators to weed out the garbage and riff raff.

Well, you really only asked one question so I will answer that. In a word, yes! I find that the top ten give answers that are intelligent, thoughtful and accurate. Sometimes, they may give an answer that the ask-er does not want to hear, but that doesn't mean that the answer is incorrect or unreliable. One such subject is piscine husbandry. Many of the top ten TC's answer is a balance of experience, knowledge, and ethics. I can say over the past year that I have seen answers from TCs that right on target. Even some that made me reconsider my stance on a particular subject and do a little more homework myself. The rest of your "question" is all opinion. You can't correct an opinion. I will however state that I do not agree with your opinion about the active top ten in the fish section. In my opinion, you are wrong. But, that's just my opinion and we all know that opinions are like butts. Some are just easier to stare at than others. I would also like to offer some free advice from me to you just for fun. Rather than rant, why not just log off? It could keep your blood pressure down a few points. :)

I agreee with what chetco said..... and upwardly and some of the others.

although I must admit I vote for my own and my networks questions unless there is a better answer and then I vote for the better answer. Which happens a lot. I love it when someone answers better than me... I use the thumbs up adn down a bit and am considereing not using it at all..

My dad used to say advice is worth what you pay for it. I think the beuaty of this is that you can get a ariety of answeres and gain some sort of sense of what to do in a situation or where to go to find more info...... whatever.

I've been on lots of websites as a contributor or discussion person and they all have downsides. there are always trolls or stupid know it alls etc. You just take what you can that is good and ignore all the junk tha tyou can.

EDIT TO ADD: OH and I like the best when the asker chooses a best answer... but it sometimes just doens'thappen. So I guess the thing to do is ASK the question in your fish category.... read the answers and look at who is answering and what their responses usually are and go from there. Trust with verification as Pres. Reagan used to say.

Hi, couldn't agree with you more on the face of it but with the best will in the world the free-for-all that is the internet where anyone can be or claim to be anyone else will pollute anything. That said, in my time on here the only 'Top Contributors' that are not up their task don't seem to last very long. I also used to think people who hid their details had something to hide but there is a legitimate reason for doing this if someone is out to get you.

You add in the problems from asking questions on an open forum where every Tom, Dick, Harry & Troll can have their say & you have an instant recipe for disaster. In my opinion all the top long serving contributors on this section know their stuff, are helpful, friendly, polite & very willing to help & like myself have a passion for helping fish & fish keepers which unfortunately usually means trying to stop newcomers killing their fish with ignorance. I would happily take advice from any one of them. The problems with giving good & helpful answers to often vague & frantically written questions are we can at best only give an educated guess so things will sometimes not be ideal but we can only work with the material we are given.

If I had to give only one piece of advice to anyone who comes on here for the first time it would be to join a properly moderated fish keeping forum.

No one but yahoo knows for sure, you can have a Top Contributor badge in 3 categories at once except ''Polls & Surveys'' and Jokes & Riddles.'' Badges come and go on Monday mornings. Yahoo keeps the formula secret. You just need to answer in a category you know the most about and get many best answers and one day it will appear.

I've seen mostly good answers from top contributors, but enough bad to make me wonder. Most of my sources when I post in the fish section are from quite a bit of involvement long term in the aquatics community, not just on line, but with various clubs, shops distributors, a real big list. That is why I put what I do in the know your source box. Much of what I post here is in my head, once in a while I will link to an article to keep me from keying in info all night with my two fat fingers.

The dog section is another story. I keep dogs, and train them myself, I don't get involved in clubs, revise & take charge of breeding programs, solve serious problems, or anything like that. My knowledge about dogs is quite sparse compared to fish, this explains why I put what I do in the source box there.

I figure the source box lets you know a little about where the answer is coming from, and helps you make a better informed choice as to what to do with the topic at hand. I've seen one other person do this in the fish section, it gives a little more in depth knowledge about where the person is coming from with their answer, in a less "play the game, win the prize" like setting. I'm surprised more folks, especially top contributors, don't do the same.

As a Top Contributor, I could care less what you think of me, I still get to use the executive washroom, no matter what!

Seriously, there's good and bad. Vote whores are easy to spot. Some have been here a long, long time... When an answer of mine comes to a vote, I vote for myself, once. If someone says something helpful, I will thumbs up them. If they say something stupid, I thumbs down them.

I like to go to the really old, 3-4 week old answers still up for voting, just to clear them out.

I have thumbs upped and voted for people I don't care for. I've also thumbs downed them.

well, since i'm one of the top 10 here in the fish section as well as a TC, i guess i feel kinda obligated to answer

you have asked 1 single q regards fish so far, i looked at the answers, but i don't feel that any of the 4 answered that did answer where rude in any way, but gave you ideas

you could have extended the length of your Question to get more answers though, but you still didn't choose the best answer yourself

as for me, i have my profile private for the simple reason because of spam and troll alert on the site

which by the way, doesn't only relate to the fish section, but to the whole answer board

if you want to see my answers, you can simply add me to your contacts, i do allow people to add me

why did i make my profile private in the first place you wonder

well, i only made it private about 3 weeks ago, suddenly there where a bunch of ID's created to target people with thumbs down as well as with answers beeing reported for no reason what so ever at all

I only answer a q if i feel i can help, if i don't i leave it allone

a lot of times i will forward q's to other users if i know they can help

The TC batch is not something we choose to get, but Y!A gives it out if you have a certain percentage of BA's as well as a certain level of consistence in answering q's

A TC batch doesn't mean that you're better then the others or know more, not at all

i see lots of answers from users which don't have a TC batch which are better then the ones with a TC batch and i will give a thumbs up

if i see a bad answer i will of course give a thumbs down

especially to users which actually don't answer the q

or just put in links as the answer without an explanation

All the answers i do give are either out of own experience or out of careful research

if my advice is wrong i fess up to it and say so

there are lots of users which where amazing and gave awsome advice, from which i also learned a lot but unfortunately don't answer anymore for many reasons

best example our top answerer Magicman, he hasn't answered in months, but his advice was like OMG, couldn't believe what this guy knows and others which are not active anymore

and of course active members like

copperhead, a person who has also knowledge, unbelievable, if you wonna know about diseases and marine he is your guy

then there is nosoop, he's amazing when it comes to plant care and has also learned a lot about diseases

then there is finatic, she's amazing when it comes to advice regards goldfish

then there is danielleZ, she is all over the place, but i think her specialty is in the koi pond direction and marine

then there is me, i'm an all arounder, but when it comes to tropicals, bettas and some cichlids i have kept, i will try to help you as much as i can, if i know the answer, if not i will forward it

then there is JonV, well he's the one who has lot's of knowledge when it comes to keeping bigger fish and also when it comes to africans breeding and chemistry q's

then there is cat, she has also a great overall knowledge, dont' know her specialties, but she also gives great advice

as for the other 2 top 10, i have no idea, they haven't been giving answers in a long time

there are many others which are not in the top 10 but have some awsome advice

naming them all is not possible, but they know

i have dedicated my free time to answer and help people when i can

all free of charge advice, what more can you ask for???

If i can help one fish per day to live and be happy, then i'm happy and i have accomplished my mission

No, not anymore than any other contributor.

If you came here for answers, you are asking the wrong questions when you trash other contributors.

I also had to make my Q and A's private due to picking up "stalkers". Someone who disagrees with your answer who goes to all your answers and reports them as violations when they aren't.

While I agree that you can't trust a top contributors answer anymore than anyone else's, there is no reason to trash them.

Nobody asks for a TC badge, the forum distributes them. Most people i know that have them wish they didn't because it causes people to attack them, just as you have.

So my suggestion to you is to not spend too much time in your fish category, or you will end up with one of those badges, and become the product of your own scorn.