Can I ask several questions about the points system in the dog section and the views of caring answerer's.?

You're right, I wish there was a better way.

Although I dont know if its mostly about experience & inexperience. I think its about opinions all around.

The system they have now was designed around the fact that someone would come here wanting an answer instead of posting their opinion & looking for back up.

In a way, we've all kinda done it to ourselves with adding more & more opinion to answers as opposed to just facts. Yes, I understand why we all do it. Someone asks about "breading" their pet dogs we aren't going to really answer their question because in doing so we would be in a way, agreeing with their irresponsible decisions.

Unfortunately people have opinions, all of us, whether they are good or bad. & because of that sadly it gets in the way on many levels.... so most times the true best answer will not be chosen. Especially when the question is an opinion. *Or* if the asker gets answers they dont want to hear.

As for multiple accounts voting for themselves? Its sad people care so much about points & YA.... however, I say it can be prevented if YA found a way to log IP addresses & not allow the same IP address to vote for their answer. If that could happen... great, but I suspect they wont.

As for the TUs & TDs. Those aren't accurate either. People TU & TD based on whether they like that person or not. While I agree, this person is an idiot, Show Breeders Sell Sick Pups will get 25+ TDs on the question based on the fact that she is so unpopular & not necessarily based on her answer. I have seen her give level headed answers on non breeding questions that were no different from many other answers... but they had 35 TDs just for being who they are. I have also seen the same among well liked users, a regular will give pretty much the same answer as a less known more random user. The regular will receive a great deal more TUs just for being who they are.

Again, personal opinions getting in the way.

I keep my Q&As private because I dont want to be trolled. I know several users who have been the target of trolls who have reported every single Q & A they give. This is more easily done if they can go straight to that person's profile. I have also seen people use past answers against a person to call them out, which adds more drama to YA that is not needed.

Moderators would be GREAT in theory. Because that way they could see for themselves when people are obviously trolling or playing favorite games. It could cut down greatly on some of the issues around here. However, at the same time it would take a lot of the fun out of it. Moderators would probably not allow many of the fun questions we post during the day to break up the monotony.

The majority of questions asked on here don't have a right or wrong answer; everyone has a different opinion on breeds, feeding, training, breeding, etc. Therefore, what constitutes the 'best answer' is also a matter of opinion.

I don't think there is anything that can be done to help a new and inexperienced dog owner that is only looking for confirmation of their opinion and is not interested in hearing other people's advice.

However, a new and inexperienced dog owner who is genuinely looking for help and advice will look at all the answers to their question, not just the one awarded 'best answer'.

I think the same problem would occur if the 'best answer' was awarded to the person with the most thumbs up; they could thumbs up themselves and a popular opinion is not necessarily the best.

I am not sure what you mean when you say about people with several computers but I suppose people might create more than one account and vote themselves as 'best answer'.

I usually answer the most recent questions first and work backwards until I have seen them all. If I don't have time, I might not get to the later questions so I suppose this might be why people don't always answer older questions.

I think everything on my profile is private. I am very interested in dogs and I enjoy reading people's questions and opinions and answering if I feel like I can help. I am not bothered about sending messages or chatting to people on here outside of that.

I am not sure why you get violation notices when replying to peoples 'roaming dog' questions. Might it be the way you word your answers or just that you are saying what they don't want to hear?

I agree - I went on vacation for a week and even though I had internet access, I pretty much stayed off answers. I am back, and same old same old. However, there are a LOT of questions on here and they do get "buried" pretty quickly. (e.g. some of the questions I answered last night are now on page 8 or 9 this morning) When you want an answer, you ask, you don't look through old questions and spend the time. I would say that it stems from the laziness of society. I teach and students ask me a question and I will say, oh we talked about that exact thing on Tuesday and they look at me like - you are going to make me look it up??!! - it would be soooo much faster for me if you just GAVE me the answer. However, what I don't get are the questions that, if the person took the SAME amount of time typing the info into goggle, or yahoo, they would get their answer that way (e.g. how long will my dog be pregnant??!!! argghhh)

You dont need more computers to vote for yourself.. all you do is make more accounts. Yahoo doesnt track IPs and ban IPs, that is why someone who has their account suspended can just go make another account.

It is against guidelines to make more accounts to vote for yourself, give yourself best answer, answer your own questions, etc.. but that is how some people get up to #2- cheating their way to the top.

It doesnt matter if you take away the points, and leave b/a to be chosen thru another system. There are people who will still cheat their way around the system.

"Should new and inexperienced dog owners be allowed to choose a "best answer" simply because the answerer agrees with them?"

Your idea on this should go over the entire site. it WOULD help, but unfortunately it probably will never happen. I am conflicted on this. What about questions where you ask for "ideas", or whatnot? For instance, i asked yesterday about the best color camisole to wear under a dog showing suit that I bought- the BA could be whichever color i liked best.

"Why do the answerer’s simply look at the most recent questions and fail to scroll down? It takes just seconds to scroll down and some of the askers are desperate."

I DO scroll down, and I star interesting questions so my contacts that know more then me can answer if they choose do.

"Another question. Is anyone suspicious of people who keep their questions and answers private?"

I do it because I don't want the general public to have ahold of my answers and questions. The TD fairies in the dog section don't need to follow me into other sections.

Anyone who takes these answers as gospel should not be on-line. People are just giving their opinions when answering and the answers may or may not be correct. I do have a problem with people who write in and say, "My dog is dying what should I do? or My dog just got hit by car and is suffering, what should I do?" Maybe they want sympathy but their first reaction should be as we all know VET! But for the most part this back and forth of questions and answers just offers a forum for people to share experiences and opinions. I don't really get the point system. What is the point? So you have 3million points with that and $1.99 I will buy a cup of coffee.

Regardless of the points or BA's i think people will only pay attention to the answers that appeal to them the most. Very often those are the answers that are based on nothing but fairy tales..

Don't need to have different computers, just different accounts and no real way to stop that unless yahoo blocks ip addresses and even then it is relatively simple to get a new one as often as you want.

I keep mine private as i have already had one suspension, a mirade of VN's on this account, a TD's fairy, someone reporting all my questions and trolls asking flaming questions in here about me.. I think that is more than enough reason to keep my sh!t private..

Someone else posted this and it was deleted. ( rolling eyes)

I posted a similiar concern and it is now in the RESOLVED section. You might want to read it.

The impression I have received is that no body who has power really cares about our concerns.

They want posts. Whether it's the right answer, or whether Joe Smith cheats , they don't really care.

I gues I was naive. Advertising wins.

you know.. i never thought about it that way but, i totally agree with you...

and yes i see inexperienced dog owners asking questions and users giving them wrong, misleading answers which kind of bugs me.. even though i shouldn't but it's the dogs i care about and it's horrible to see a dog at risk because of breeding or the owner fed it human food and it's having seizures(sp?) and are on here asking un-professional questions.. i mean like questions, is my dog in heat... is she pregnant.. how i do breed my dog... my dog is dieing what do i do.. those kind of questions bug me.

but i understand what you mean and where you're coming from, and i'm on your side.. i think it should be voted those with the most thumbs up.. and if there were ties then they would be able to chose who had the best answer.

and i agree with everything Lorraine said! **

Don't know what would work anyway Dorothy.

I have on some occassions given totally factual answers - not opinions but facts, and they have still got thumbs downs because someone didn't want to listen.........

The only thing that really annoys me about it is that Show Breeders Sell Sick Pups has found herself 2nd in the ratings. That is the only thing that bothers me.

For someone to openly announce that she doesn't care how many of her dogs end up in rescue doesn't deserve anybody's respect.