Shouldn't the Best Answer be picked by vote instead of chosen by the person asking the question?

No, that is the way things did work, and it was changed at the request of users because of the rampant cheating that went on. People would vote for their own answer, or search for a question with few answers about to go to vote, add an answer and vote for it, or get their posse of friends to vote for them simply to move up in the top 10.

The way it is now there are still ways to cheat, but overall it is a lot more fair and getting a best answer means something now.

It should be picked because it truly Is the Best Answer. It should be picked because said answer Will help someone in the future looking for that same answer. But No one really knows why YA thought the OP would Ever know how to pick a decent answer. In Most cases - I Do 'agree' with what You wrote.

I find a Lot of 'soapbox/agree with my rant or whine' being chosen even though plenty of good users answered said Q. It made No sense for YA to expect the OP to choose. For 1, Most OP's Never return. And 2, they were asking a question of which they did Not know the answer. So if they were unable/unwilling to research said answer at the time they posted - it seems unrealistic they'd Have the knowledge to choose the 'right' BA once it was presented to them.

All You can really do is answer a Q & hope that it will help someone. Honestly Nothing more can be expected.

No, not necessarily. Most members didn't bother to vote, and those that did usually put one in for their own answers. The amount of gaming and abuse going on around here was ridiculous back in the day (in fact, I'd bet my firstborn son that the vast majority of the Top Answerers in any section only got there due to self-voting). Now, most of these same folks have to actually put effort into whipping up a good answer.

Most of the time, users who ask those "do you agree?" questions are violating the community guidelines in some way. It could be a troll post, a rant, or an otherwise mundane post where the OP insults others for not agreeing with them. Otherwise, you just have to suck it up and deal with the fact that not everyone here is actually looking for self-improvement.

So, you can't always trust the YA community, nor can you rely on the judgment of the asker 100% of the time.

Absolutely not. As mentioned, voting was extremely abused for personal gain.

So, what SHOULD happen? Best Answers should be eliminated here completely. They serve NO purpose whatsoever. The points are useless, the TC crown is more of a target than a badge of any kind of honor, the Top Answerers list means nothing at all. We should be here because we WANT to give good answers to real questions, not because we want to get 10 points for being picked as Best Answer. We should be willing and able to answer directly and honestly, with respect for other users and the asker, without trying to "suck up" to the person asking just so we might have a better chance of that.

So - here is a question back to you. Are you open-minded enough to eventually select a BA that does NOT agree with you?

I agree because too many users give BA to their contacts/friends,some entirely wrong.Time to bring back voting YA!

Yes I agree--Pick Me Pick Me--dang this did not work did it truly--