Now that we have automatic best answer choosing based on votes, why don't we eliminate the asker from the choosing process?

I would not mind letting default tipped question go to voting but would never again ask a tipped with my own money question again if I could not select the best answer. I mean how could we ask a user to spend their own money and not select the answer they felt was best? - I would be more inclined to remove the voting in favor of *requiring* a user who asks a question to select the best answer so the voting does not ever have to happen and the total number of questions needing votes at all would be limited to questions asked anonymously.

Asking a question and tipping it yourself is in effect buying a product and not letting the asker of the question select which of the 'products' (answers) they want to buy would eliminate any desire to tip questions with our own money. Requiring the crowd to choose the best answer and removing the askers ability to choose is like forcing the askers to go shopping blind. I still think the best way to get a best answer is to give one.

The voting will end up favoring the answer that is best in most cases, sometimes not, but in most cases the answer that best answers the question in the eyes of the asker or the voters will get the best answer.

I think we shouldn't because not letting the asker pick an answer gives way to two potential problems that I would say are both worse than the asker picking a friend's answer. First off, it actually becomes easier to game the system. All you need is a group of 5 to 10 people to give half-arsed answers and all vote for eachother's answers.

Unless the voting frequency among all individuals went way up, these groups would easily control all the answers they went after. Newbies and individuals would have a scant chance of getting average tipped questions. Second, personally, I would stop asking question all together (not that I ask that many) and I think a lot of other people would stop asking, too.

I am not going to throw M$ out there for people to vote all over, I want to choose who I pay based on what I get back. However, letting the asker pick, or requiring them to pick has its own pitfalls. We have all seen issues where we felt the asker did not objectively pick the BA or picked NBA after several people gave good answers.

The community has a good way to deal with problematic askers, though: don't answer their questions. These people can be unofficially, informally black listed. It is much easier as a community to deal with problem askers than with problem voting groups, I think.

We can ignore questions from askers who have a history of gaming (I have done this before), but it would be much harder to sway a vote away from a gaming group.

I think that's a very good idea. Some answers are "opinions" as opposed to a specific answer. Usually by the very act of asking the question, the "asker" already has an opinion.

Voting, rather than choosing, I think, would be a good alternative.

There are many trails and errors in selecting a best answer. Some website (yahoo answers) has a option to select the best answer by the asker of the question within a particular time (say for first 5 days); if the asker did not choose a best answer within that time, the question goes to open vote (where the asker has nothing to do), the voters selected the best answer according to highest votes. This system allows for nepotism in Yahoo Answers, where friends choose each other's answers as best.

Your question: "why don't we eliminate the asker from the choosing process? " - if the asker is totally eliminated from the choosing process, what is our benefit, and what harm does the asker cause us? If the choice is totally on the asker, their is chance of nepotism (i.e.

Choosing friends' answer as best answer), so it is better to have the asker as a voter rather than as the sole decision-maker for best answer. Hence, I think your proposal is well articulated and acceptable. That means, the asker will vote, and other voters will vote, and then the best answer will be chosen based on highest number of votes.

This would be an excellent idea in Mahalo.

I've been thinking about "not selecting" the best answer and letting it go to vote. Would that hurt the feeling of loyal members, who have answered hundreds of my questions, if I didn't do the selection? Do you expect me to select the best answer?

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.