Did John Andretti and the name Richard Petty bring bump day back into relevance?

The only thing that will ever slow down the TD abuse/misuse in this category (and others, I'm sure) would be a 'cost' of some sort to the user who downrates the answer. It has been suggested to charge 1 or more points to give a rating. Or to show the Yahoo!

Nickname of the user who gave the TD. Or to require a reason be given for a TD. Or to put a limit on how many thumbs down a user can give in a day, or on a particular other user's answers.

Etc. I'd favor requiring a captcha code before submitting a TD. The best idea would be to simply eliminate the thumbs down.

What real purpose does it serve? We now have the ability to comment -- if we dislike/disagree with an answer, why not say so in a comment rather than cower behind an anonymous TD? Or why not just post a better answer, ourselves!

An answer should be judged on its own merit, not by which user gave the answer or when it was posted, or which answer Yahoo!'s auto-sort considers 'relevant'. Perhaps names and avatars should be eliminated and answers should be designated as Answer 1, Answer 2, etc. (as it used to be on answers to questions in voting -- all identifying information hidden)? Perhaps the answers should be displayed in randomized order, too?

(And no, I'm not in favor of that idea, just pointing out that removing the identifiers and scrambling the display order might slow down the knee-jerk downrating that happens here.) Eliminating the Relevance sort and restoring the timestamp won't do it. The Relevance mess should be eliminated anyway (which would also make the timestamp irrelevant) -- answers should be shown in the order in which they were given, period. There was no good reason to change that.

Not very likely, it would not change the mentality of those who abuse the thumbs down option. Removing the relevance sort and having the timestamp back would be a great idea but as with anything that would be a benefit it is not likely to happen.

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.