Why You Should Sometimes Choose "No Best Answer" - When Voting on Undecided Questions?

I have seen this as well even copy and paste answers being awarded "best answer" I would like to take this opportunity to offer some transparency as to my method of selecting "best answer" or "no best answer". I first read and really listen to the question then begin with determining which answer is the "best answer" and if their is only one answer determining if the answer is "A best answer". I look for these things in "a best answer" 1) Was the question answered entirely (meeting all the questions criteria) and if so was it answered correctly.2) I find out if the answer was answered correctly by checking the sources and the reliability of the sources.3) If multiple answers meet all of this criteria I will begin to judge on multimedia such as pictures, audio and video.

The difference between "the best answer" and "a best answer" is "The best answer" is usually a solo answer or one of a few incorrect answers just happening to be less wrong than the others. It is merely just the best answer given and I will usually vote "no best answer". "A best answer" is an answer that has met all of the above mentioned criteria (1, 2 and 3) and has distinguished itself for the other answers in manners of ease of understanding or accuracy and relevancy of correct information.

I always vote honestly. I find especially on older questions, it seems like a lot of users are just answering things like "yes" or just 1 link to answer the questions because they know they'll most likely get the tip. They're usually in a big group together.

The ones I really hate are the ones that people have answered but they don't really answer the question.. they just sort of skirt around the topic. I'm never quite sure what to do! Then I feel silly when I'm the one person that's voted "no best answer" and 12 other people have voted for it!

I think "no best answer" should be used more often, on the whole, because the quality of answers is so low. However, there is no way that the standard should be as high as some folks are suggesting. On questions that I ask, if I had to pick only a well sourced, thought out answer as a best answer I'd only have given out a handful out of all my questions.

And how much work can you expect for a dime anyway (after conversion and taxes), or even 50 cents? So I choose best answer if it looks like someone gave it a try, more or less. But since so many answers are blown off the front page by twitter and a few abusers of questions, many questions are seen by very few folks one can't expect too much even from a discussion question.

Another thing, if "no best answer" causes a question to disappear, that's terrible. No one will see the question or attempts to answer it or relevant comments and corrections. All the effort will be wasted.

That's only good if the question and the answers are outright bad (all too common).

I, of course, naturally agree with the "no best answer" philosophy quite a bit. But, allow me to play devil's advocate for one point that has given me headaches, and concerning which I have butted heads with more than one Mahaloian: The "Un-Sourced" Answer ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ POINT #1: SOME UN-SOURCED ANSWERS CAN STILL HOLD WATER I have had problems in the past regarding answers that need no sources: The information (sometimes including obscure statistics or instructions) comes from a niche of education or personal experience. In that case, I find it irritating to see an answer voted "Unhelpful" or "No Best Answer" solely because a source was not provided.

Sometimes the source is one's own brain. In the past I've been told to go out and find a source to "back up" my knowledge. And although I agree that this can fortify an argument, if I'm just trying to give tips or advice I feel my personal knowledge can stand alone.

I'll grant you that although between two identical answers, I might favor an answer with sources, I do not necessarily think a "sourceless" answer is "No Best Answer" material. @jeffhoard, I know that most of the cases you're specifically referring to are ones where a source is blatantly needed (ESPECIALLY when quoting directly from text). But I just want to give a shout-out to the people who have itchy "No Best Answer" fingers as soon as they see the Source field blank.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ POINT #2 - NOT ALL SOURCES ARE GOOD SOURCES I recently saw a case where two very similar answers were given. The 1st answer provided one solid source. The 2nd answer provided 3 different sources.

Best Answer went to the 2nd answer because, as noted by voters in the comments, "Wow, good job with the sources! ". Clearly, the voters didn't actually CHECK the sources.

One was for a radical hate website, one was from a gibberish blog, and one was as a dead link. All three sources were pulled from a bbs forum on another website, and clearly Answerer #2 hadn't bothered to check the sources either (or he would've noticed the dead link). Now Answerer #1's source was clear, cogent, and reliable.

Lesson: More sources doesn't mean better sources. If you're going to prefer an answer over another just based on sources, check and make sure they're good ones!

At first glance it looks like people are 'being stupid' or voting badly. But on reflection I think that it could be due to something about the way that Mahalo is set up. If we consider what sort of questions get best answers..... 1) They tend to be well written questions 2) They tend to offer large tips... either from the original asker, or team tips from the community because the question is interesting.

People tend to work harder for a M$1 than a M$0.25 question 3)Questions that are marked as interesting are more visible and so get answered by more people. 4) If a question has already got a good answer then there is some pressure on the next answerer to give a better answer if they want to be in with a shot of getting the BEST answer. 5) There is some amount of luck.

If you ask a question about brain surgery at the same time as a brain surgeon is looking then you may get a amazingly good answer just because she sees it at that exact moment So far so good. But if we look at the big pile of old questions they tend to have the same factors working against them 1) Some of the questions aren't written well at all... so its often hard to know what they were really about 2) most are M$0.25, so answers will tend to be short, maybe a few links and not a whole lot of original thought 3) you have to go looking for the questions.. less people see them and hence they have a smaller answer pool to draw from 4) If there's no previous answer, its really easy to get away with an 'easy answer' that wouldn't stand a chance in the new questions 5) The questions miss out on the luck of synchronicity.. they won't get that sort of lucky break... So older questions won't get the same general level of quality compared to the new ones. I think that this has also lead to a change in voting patterns for the older questions.

The perceived standard that is needed for a best answer is far lower in old questions than new ones. Whilst most people would use @psynopsis standard of WOWIC "Which One Would I Choose If I was the asker" (WOWICIIWTA) for new questions it clearly isn't being used for older questions. I definately do use WOWICIIWTA for new answers but I don't apply that standard to old ones.

Instead I apply the lower standard of "Does It Technically Answer The Question Correctly? " (DITATQC) The staggering fact is, I really wasn't consciously aware of doing this until I read this question... but I suspect this explains the voting at the older end of the question scale. If the quality of answers is considered really important, and I hope it is, then I think there should be a cut off date.

Any question asked over say 60 days ago should just drop off the end of the world and never be answered. Personally I'd like a 30 day cut off, but that may be too aggressive a stance and would the implications of it should be thought through first. The questioner by that point probably thinks it will never be answered and the only person who cares is the person answering for the MS$0.25.

But there's no shortage of questions coming in the front door so it's not as if we're likely to run out of new questions to answer is it?

Jeffhoard Thank you for suppling this information. I have been viewing some of the undecided answers lately and had noticed ones with a single answer or even a few that had mulitple answers but none seemed to really answer the question at all,or had answered it but not to a degree that I would say was justified to reward for. Being new to Mahalo I found myself abit preplexed as to how to proceed with a vote and finalizing my decision on such questions.

Instead of voting in favor of an inferior answer I would just leave the question to the next voter. I was unaware that by voting best answer to a single poorly answered question I was actually contributing to diluting the quality of the Mahalo data bank. Now that you have explained this I can go back in my spare time and vote on some of the undecided with this knowledge, that will greatly aid me to do a better job of contributing to the betterment of Mahalo.No Best Answer can be the best answer in certain circumstances.

I now know this, due to you heads up post. Mahalo sir.

Something else to consider. Several political questions have been answered in obviously biased fashion based on the opinion of the answerer "those evil republicans are to blame for everything", or "those democrats are ruining the country". Unless you want Mahalo discredited as an opinion based home of flaming trolls, something should be done to discourage that sort of question and answer.

Here is a question that I believe should get the "No Best Answer" vote. http://www.mahalo.com/answers/money/has-anyone-had-any-experience-working-through-a-loan-modification-with-wells-fargo-for-clients-i-would-appreciate-some-insight It merely gives an opinion without providing any details about first-hand experience, as requested by the asker. Even if first-hand experience is not available, the answerer could have researched comments by others who have had experience, and could have pointed the asker in that direction, by properly providing sources and including some analysis which may be helpful to the asker.

I have already begun to leave comments explaining my reasons for voting "No Best Answer" and hope that others will follow suit. Respectfully, Shin.

Some solutions for problems mentioned by @jeffhoard : 1. Inaccurate: best answer being refuted on facts, M$ be withdrawn from winner’s account. 2.

Unsourced; short sentenced answer: a. Make it mandatory to have source or set a lower limit for number of characters in answer. It will be good if website put in answer can be “detected�

Automatically. But some types of question may not have "source", so we have to use "sourced" or "sufficiently long" answer instead of "sourced" and "sufficiently long" answer. B.

Best answer having violating these, won M$ be withdrawn from winner’s account. Other problems and possible solution: 1. Syndication of persons awarding best answers to undeserved answers of “friends�

: a. Strip off temporarily priviledge to ask question and answer question, freeze account, M$ until satisfactory explanation; b. Progressive limit on question and answer.

2. People may feel bad refuting facts or reporting malpractice Incentive (points) and anonymity for person to report inaccurate, unsourced, short sentenced answer.3.It was stated “All M$ amounts are subject to internal audit and may change�. Reiterate possibility of M$ being pulled back if found malpractice, M$ account being frozen etc.. 4.

I have asked question that I have to select “No best answer� But there will have sentence showing something like “are you sure….?�. I think this in a way may make asker having doubt to select “No best answer�.

I think those sentences should not be there.

Jeffhoard, please don't apologize for bringing this up! You have included some excellent information that we all need to be aware of. I did not know that the questions with no best answer go away and are not in the search engines.

That is great to know! Makes me want to go look for those that I think have no best answer just to get them out of the way! =) I'm sure we all appreciate your efforts at making Mahalo the best it can be.

I know I do.

This is a great point to bring up. I've seen far too many Best Answers given to answers that truly did not deserve it. I think a lot of the problem is that people aren't really bothering to read ALL the answers, and instead just vote for the first answer in order to scroll through the questions faster - because 9 times out of 10 I see the most votes going to the first answer, when there are far better answers down towards the bottom.So hopefully people will start giving more thought into this when voting.

I use "No Best Answer" to send a message. The message is "I'm very unhappy about the answer". The use of the "No Best Answer" is very subjective.

I did use it once to recapture a tip, to advance my earnings standing. I felt bad because the answers were good, but I need the money.

Thanks for bringing this up. Last time I voted I noticed some answers that I though didn't deserve a best answer even though a number of people voted that way. I was thinking about mentioning this but it looks like it's well in hand.

If I find any during my next voting binge I'll add them here as a comment.

You should allways answer honestly... don't plaguarize... don't take words from movies say wat comes to your mind. To make sure no one has plagurized copy and paste it to google if it pops up somewhere else vote no for them if they all do vote no best answer. We can not allow people to earn money for stuff they did not put money into that is just not fair.

Everyone please make sure you check before voting. From:Alex have a good day :P.

I agree with you. If a question has only been answered with a spam answer and a copy and paste then the no best answer button is a great idea.

Yes! I have seen this done all the time. I still don't understand why members will vote for answers that don't really answer the question.

When I visit the undecided section I make sure every answer I vote for has quality to it. I think members are scared of the "No Best Answer" button. One way that helps me choose the best answer is by taking the place of the asker.

I call it WOWIC "Which One Would I Choose". I am sure selecting no best answer feels bad but you have to think about the community as a whole. Bad answers make this community look bad.

:D.

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.