Should you be able to vote your own answer as best on YA?

If more people voted for best answers, if wouldn't be a problem. But not enough people vote, because it doesn't give enough Yahoo Answer points. So instead, the majority of the people voting for best answers are the ones who vote only for their own answers to raise their points.

Suppose Yahoo would grant you 5 points for voting on a question on which you didn't participate. More people would vote, and the quality of the best answers would improve dramatically.

Except that it's a pretty free voting system where they let you vote on any answer. The problem isn't that people are able to vote for their own answer, the problem is that not enough people vote for answers overall. Period. I'm one of the people who votes for my own answer as best at most opportunities, & it's not just for the points, but also because I almost always feel that my answer is the best. If the asking person doesn't pick mine or anyone else's answer, I feel as if I have every right to vote for myself. With that being said, I do tend to agree with you somewhat that some of the best answers are awful & undeserving. However, what I've seen is that many questions that get voted on usually end up with only between 1 & 5 votes--& often it's only one, so it becomes easier for someone with a dumb answer to vote theirs as best & then have it win simply because no one else participated in the voting process. What I think needs to happen is that there needs to be a better system of 'vetting' the answers so that if the asker doesn't choose a BA, there should be answers which qualify to be voted on--then maybe some that don't qualify. That's where I feel the biggest problem lies.

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Yes we should,

Many very bad answers do win the vote in voting for sure but just as many bad answers get chosen as best from those asking.

The problem is too many do not choose a best answers and that allows the mess that voting has become to continue.

The other problem is an asker can choose whatever answer they want as best even a violation which should probably have been reported not rewarded.

On a site as big as this one there is no solution to the many things that happen that shouldn't.

If you really think about it the whole system is flawed and a contradiction.

Asking a question you don't know the answer to BUT you get to choose a best answer.

Being able to vote in your own answer provides incentive for people to stay on Yahoo Answers and keep climbing the points ladder. Otherwise, the accumulation of points can be just too slow. Many questioners never come back to choose a best answer, and many people don't think to get points by choosing a best answer for other people's questions. If people feel discouaged about the points, they tend to leave for other places on the web.

I honestly couldn't care less.

Sure it is nice to see that my answer has been chosen as the best by someone, but I don't answer with that in mind.

And as a lot of people use it as a way of re-affirming friendship or have several accounts with which to vote their answer as best, I don't think that it is possible to fix the point gaining side of it.

Answers is ( on the whole) a very pleasant way to pass the time, air ones opinions , hopefully learn something or be helpful. If people worry about gaining points or the dreaded yellow badge then that this their problem and not one of mine.

It would not matter. Those who vote for their own bad answers would just set up another "voting" account and keep doing it. You would not see any changes. In a section like this one, people vote for their own answer because it is sometimes the only answer and people do pretty good finding a good answer.

Yes. It isn’t against community guidelines. Voting for yourself is common in every aspect of life. It doesn’t matter if you are running for class president of your Grade 8 class, President of the United States , a Member of Parliament or mayor of your city everyone can and does vote for themselves. OnYA it helps avoid what would be a horrendous number of unresolved questions. Of course it would be bad form to vote for yourself if your answer wasn’t really the best answer.

You can now. You can vote for yourself. I know many here that do it already.

It is allowable, I think because it is like politics when they can vote for themselves

Chetak

i completely agree with you