Since helpful votes are now potentially selecting Best Answer, would it be wise to change our voting habits? (See details)
- Only vote for one answer?
- Wait til at least a few answers are in before voting?
- Don't vote for answers that are funny and enjoyable, but maybe less serious than others?
- Always vote for an answer, even if none were outstanding?
- Vote unhelpful on answers that aren't BA material, where previously we'd have let it go?
- Anything else you can think of?
I'm not sure what I think about these things myself.
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M$2 Answers
- Only vote for one answer? Yes, unless there are two equally deserving.
- Wait til at least a few answers are in before voting? I'd say not vote during the first day or two, and after that, vote whenever you have occasion to.
- Don't vote for answers that are funny and enjoyable, but maybe less serious than others? Funny and enjoyable is in my opinion good for breaking a tie between answers that provide the same content value. However, it is never the primary decider for me.
- Always vote for an answer, even if none were outstanding? I'd say always vote for the best of available answers, unless none are even remotely BA material. In the latter case, comment as to what would improve the best answer there.
- Vote unhelpful on answers that aren't BA material, where previously we'd have let it go? This is where I draw the line. Unhelpful is just that. If someone's answer is incomplete, but provides some value to the asker, one should not vote it unhelpful. You can always vote up another answer if you think that one is better.
- Anything else you can think of? Several things:
1. Make a point of visiting the Spy feature daily and voting on about-to-expire questions
2. Don't vote unhelpful if you disagree with an opinion, unless it is irrelevant to the question.
3. Don't vote down an answer to promote your (or your friends') answers.
4. If you have to vote unhelpful - leave a comment explaining why you did so.
5. Lobby the staff (politely) to remove the auto-NBA feature for future decisions.
6. Lobby the staff (politely) to reverse the auto-NBA'ed questions and adjudicate them in an equitable manner.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
http://www.mahalo.com/answers/mahalo-answers-community/mahalo-answers-voting-simplified
but it's worth repeating here.
"Instead of just interesting or uninteresting, have voters "grade" the quality of the question and answer. I know their tip reflects this to some extent, but not in a way that effects the new nba in 5 days. This would solve the tie problem (or greatly reduce it) and also dramatically identify the truly good content."
Worth repeating: "help Mahalo identify truly good content."
To elaborate a little further the vote button could bring up the same pop-up "scale" that the Asker gets (5 stars topped by "Above and Beyond"). But while we're on the topic, if I were Mahalo, I would define those tags a little more to reflect what Mahalo wants to accomplish on their site, and communicate more effectively to users. Exs:
Off Topic ~ Incomplete ~ Adequate ~ Well Done ~ Above and Beyond
(Note, 'Incomplete' and 'Above and Beyond' don't change from present options.) If Mahalo wanted to fine tune how users rated answers (or questions for that matter) they could expand the options and define them any way that they needed at at any given time. Not that I'm proposing it override or replace the Asker selecting BA themselves, but in all cases Mahalo would get more value out of the same function than just the up/down they use now.
Personal opinion: There is no "would it be wise." People will change their voting habits and probably already have, whether they realize it or not.
Observation: The spy button can get you to No Best Answer questions, but the queue is random as opposed to oldest first, and you can't tell how many answers. Also, some questions are repeated, I just found one that's in there 30 times, so this is very user unfriendly.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
> The spy button can get you to No Best Answer questions
The No Best Answers have already been decided as NBA so it is too late to vote on them. The place to look is in the Reminders, where you get a warning that questions will be decided soon.
http://www.mahalo.com/answers/spy?filter=reminders
> have voters "grade" the quality of the question and answer
Voters giving a star rating to answers would be a great idea.
Answers with 2 stars or less would be NBA material, and for higher rated questions, the star rating would be hopefully be a tie breaker a lot of the time.
Questions already get a kind of "quality rating" from the amount people add as team tips on them. There is no real reason to judge them any further than that.
> People will change their voting habits
Habits are sticky things, by defintiion. I certainly find myself reaching for the vote buttons in the exact same way I used to before.
If people do plan on changing habits, it's better they give it some thought first rather than find themselves automatically switching.
I would just add that we should change both the name of the helpful and unhelpful buttons and all description within Mahalo regarding their older use which was accurately described. An answer was helpful or unhelpful.. now answers are either more of a candidate or less of a candidate for best answer as thought by the opinion of the voter.
The negative stigma of unhelpful needs to be removed from our minds as "unhelpful" votes will decide questions more than helpful votes will. Like eBay with its auction timer... waiting until the voting timer is nearly up and a last second unhelpful vote.. poof new best answer. This will happen frequently and should collectively be accepted as normal behavior.
Maybe a simple and accurate description of the buttons and their function would be best to better describe their use and help in removing the negative stigma attached to the unhelpful button because this is a fundamental change in why the button is pushed.
Helpful should simply become "vote up"
Unhelpful should simply become "vote down"
Plain and simple description of usage and description of function.
With no more attachment of the actual helpful or unhelpfulness of an answer to these buttons it will easier to understand how and when to use them.
I agree 100% with @buddawiggi suggestions.
Unhelpful has a stigma with it and the true meaning is NBA. No vote down, but a button for reply.
Though how do you implement "require askers to make the decision.. select an answer as best."? Many, if not most, users don't select BA. And that's not because they don't have courage.
Since as asker you get emails each time a new answer comes in, you will read them all, so you can vote each one up as it comes in if you think it's worthy.
Btw, I don't use email alerts. I have enough email already. :)
But you are right that I will see all the answers.
I completely agree with @buddawiggi's "vote up" and "vote down", suggestions...
I am tempted to vote up your answer, but according to our logic I should refrain for now. :)
The downsides I can see to not voting early is that you might forget altogether later, and that there could be an element of needing to revisit a question twice or more, which was supposed to be avoided by the single-stage voting system.
I don't think so. That's a kludge workaround. Instead Mahalo should simply treat questions with answers that have no votes as being in an all-way tie. After 5 days with no asker selection of BA/NBA those should go into sudden-death voting.
@opher said: "If no answers have any votes, the system selects NBA automatically, which we've been lobbying Mahalo to get rid of as it is unfair in most cases - many questions simply never get voted on."
This is bad news to people like @davepamn and his barrage of insightful Questions. Many will go down the system after the 5 days limit. On the other hand I still don't understand how the new voting process works with just the reminders... ¿Where is the "Vote a Best Answer" button?
This is true.
I also pretty much always choose a BA myself, unless one slips through the net.
So helpful votes on this question will only help me make up my mind, but otherwise likely not affect the outcome.
New question .. same topic..
Should all of our answers start out with a single "helpful" vote?
This eliminates all auto selected NBAs due to lack of voting.
@opher said: "Make a point of visiting the Spy feature daily and voting on about-to-expire questions"
I Agree with @opher and also with @buddawiggi's view... but it seem the Spy feature was canceled with the latest changes on Voting and with Undecided Questions during the last hours. I've been trying to find how to vote on somebody's Best Answer and they are nowhere to be seeing. The "Vote as Best Answer" button appears to be gone. ¿How do we vote now?
There got to be a differentiation on the type of voting we are facing in Mahalo. There are three kinds of voting, and the three are all different, but difficult to discriminate thru all the new barrage of voting features. It’s awkward.
Here are the three types of voting at Mahalo...
* Vote up "somebody's" Answer (helpful button)
* Vote "somebody's" Question
* Vote "somebody's" Best Answer
@pixelsilva - the spy feature is alive and well (see e.g. http://www.mahalo.com/answers/spy?filter=reminders ). You can no longer vote on Undecided Questions, as Mahalo has changed to a single-step voting process where the voting takes place in parallel to the asker being able to select BA/NBA, by voting a question up or down (and I agree with @philipy's suggestion to simply get rid of voting down button and leave in the "report" button). An asker can supersede the voting any time during the first 5 days by selecting BA/NBA. Once the time is up, if the asker did not choose, the system awards BA to the answer with most up votes. In case of a non-zero tie it goes into a sudden-death tie breaker period where the first of the tied answer to get another vote wins BA. If no answers have any votes, the system selects NBA automatically, which we've been lobbying Mahalo to get rid of as it is unfair in most cases - many questions simply never get voted on.
I have wanted to get rid of the unhelpful button for a long time.
It breeds negativity and in its last function did nothing that the report button could not do all by itself. I would like it if there was no way to express a dislike of something with a button.. we should use our words to describe the unhelpfulness of answer or use the report button. Would love it.. for a long time now. A+ for Mahalo getting rid of the negative and relying strictly on the positive.
In the online version of my local newspaper they do this in the comment section. Under every comment there are 3 buttons "Like", "Reply", and "Flag" .. one uses the the buttons as described and there is no unexplained negativity.. there is no "Push Button" opportunity to be negative at all. Take a look..
http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/news/692418-196/man-deported-five-times-facing-prison.html?i=1
This would be awesome... seems like just a far away dream.
edit.. I think only anonymous questions should be decided this way.. every user should, in order to close the question, be required to make a choice and select one of the answers as best or select no best answer. ..toughen up, grab some intestinal fortitude, and make a decision.. getting rid of undecided voting by creating another system of undecided voting did not get rid of anything..
Lets _really_ get rid of voting (except for anonymous) and require askers to make the decision.. select an answer as best.
@pixelsilva - first, @davepamn can still select BA or NBA any time in the first 5 days (instead of 72 hours previously). Second, there is no Vote Best Answer button for voters. Instead, you just vote "helpful" on an answer (or 2, or 3,etc.) and the system gives BA to the answer with the most "helpful" votes.
Maybe we should just get rid of the "vote down"?
What I might like in this new situation is a way to change my mind when a better answer comes along, and retract an earlier upvote.
See also my suggestion here.
My other suggestion is remove the "Voted Unhelpful" button and transfer it below the members answer with "Comment • Like • Dislike" button just like in the Mahalo Profile Page.