Should Yahoo Answers get rid of the "thumbs down"?

I agree get rid of the thumbs down.

I spend a lot of time in the politics section and it is a place where even when you show supporting documentation on an issue, users thumb it down if they don't happen to agree with a fact. So.. something that is true and verifiable could have 10 thumbs down.

Keep the thumbs up and get rid of the thumbs down.

Also get rid of the comments or at least have a way to notify people when a comment has been made. I don't go back to check comments and often someone has made one that I would like to have responded to had I known about it.

There are many improvements that could be made to make this a better site.

There are very good reasons for a TD. Those cases are very valuable and worth allowing people to abuse it. Take a math question with two answers. One has two thumbs up and the other has no thumbs up, but was posted an hour before the other. You really will not know which answer to correct. Did those two users just like the second answer better? Now take those same answers, one having two thumbs up and the other having five thumbs down. It becomes clear there is a problem.

Thumbs also keep you from having to post an answer. Take a simple question. What is your favorite color? (note this question is a violation, but for illustrative purposes here). If you answer pink and someone answers blue, instead of other people answering blue or pink, they just TU/TD the answers. If they don't like your pink and are neutral on blue, they may TD you and do nothing for the other answer. It is nothing personal, it is just away of agreeing or not. If somebody has a good or bad answer, the thumbs give you a way to show it.

To be honest I disagree.

The thumbs down button is a valueable tool to indicate when an answer is misleading or just plain incorrect.

There are many occasions (often from people smart to it and playing by the letter of the law) that someone answers the question with deliberately incorrect answer (they presumably think it's amusing). As it is an answer and doesn't violate Community Guidelines then it's permissable and you can't report it (incorrect info is not a violation) but it's still incorrect nevertheless. Therefore it's a good indication which the community can use to demonstrate to the asker that it is a useless answer.

e.g. recently there was a glitch whereby the incorrect Best Answer percentage was displayed on one of the screens. One user kept insisting that it was simply a decimal place error (which was not the case as I proved with my own account showing 75% in one screen and 82% in the other). The person kept insisting it each and every time despite being informed time and again that the info was incorrect and as more people realised this the thumbs down on the answer increased.

Yes there are instances of abuse, I accept that, but taking away the TD button is like throwing the baby away with the bathwater (an extreme reaction to the issue). What Yahoo should do is to once again stop Level 1 users being able to rate. They did this already a number of years ago 2009-ish time but unfortunately changed their minds back recently and allowed Level 1 users to rate again. Net result is that people can set up multiple accounts and start block rating again now. Poor decision in my opinion.

I always figured it left the option to give a thumbs up... or not. The problem with the thumbs down is some abuse it.. they use multiple accounts to give thumbs down to people they don't like and when enough thumbs down are given, the answer is hidden.. which I don't believe is right. No answer should be hidden.. it's a form of shutting up someone we don't like or don't agree with.

No, YA is already trying to be like other sites and that's where they've made their mistake. I joined this site because of its difference from such places as facebook. What fb has in 'likes', Ya has in 'TU's.'

Every online free forum is going to be abused so if the ratings are such a bother for you, then I'm sorry but it's the web and most here find pleasure in whining by giving a TD. In most cases the TD's given are by trolls, members that are too immature to comprehend the truth and were looking for someone to agree, or friends of the OP that were told to be rude to the member that was telling the OP the truth or just trying to give helpful advice.

When I give a TD it's because the responder has been extremely rude or given false info. I'm also kind enough to report them If their response is threatening. If anything, comments should be gotten rid off. A 'TD' is just a mark, but a comment has words and many times those words are downright repulsive.

Up and Down are a fantastic idea, a small change could make it better.

the user type a 50 character line to simply explain why UP or Down.

Or click on the Up or Down and take you to a page where you can see each one who pushed up or down reason

I answer some question and I would love to know why the up or down, it would tell me why I am right and why I am wrong.

No it just to correct people's answers

And sometimes trolls can just thumb you down when the answer correct

No

no

No