Why does the Answers community misuse the Thumbs Up/Down feature?

Question

This one is starting to kind of annoy me. The guidelines say"Give an answer a thumbs-down rating when you feel the answer is not helpful to the person who asked the question. Give a question a thumbs-down rating when you feel it doesn't quite violate the Guidelines, but it belongs more on a chat board, and not on a Q&A ."

I find especially in the areas of politics and religion (Thats why i put this question in religion so it would be seen), so many thumbs (either up or down) are awarded simply because users agree or disagree with the askers opinions or ideology.
Example-"Don't you think abortion is murder of an unborn child?" Answer 1 Yes (it get tons of thumbs up and a bunch of thumbs down too) Answer 2: No, a woman has a right to make that decision (also many thumbs). The best part is the askers then award best answer to the asker who just told them what they wanted to hear all along. Plus, if you know what ansers you want to here, do you really need to ask the question?

Last sentence should read "If you know what answeres you want to hear" etc

Man I am butchering spelling. I just woke up will be my official reason. Sorry

Answer 1

Many users give thumbs down to every question except their own, or follow specific users around and give all their answers thumbs downs.

It's because they are small minded and have nothing better to do with their sad little lives.

For example

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;_ylt=Apoh4bbLh3GDh.j3UoDUNLLsy6IX?qid=20061119042304AA6Mugz

Every answer is correct yet every answer has a thumbs down

As for the comment on the asker giving best answer to whoever matches their personal opinions most, yes it is annoying but it is their question so theyare well within their rights to give the points to the best a55kisser around if they want

Answer 2

each so often i'm getting thumbs downs for no reason. Like I in all probability will for this one. i admire score. I provide thumbs up if your answer the two makes me snort or is a high quality answer. Thumbs downs if i think of your answer exchange into dumb/relatively do not consider it, would not answer the question or isn't clever. i think of that's a stable function simply by fact it enables the asker to confirm which solutions are the greater valuable ones and rewards you for a stable answer even in spite of if it relatively is not picked as maximum suitable, and we could the people who provide crap solutions be attentive to that their answer sucked. additionally it enables the answerer to confirm in spite of if or not people like/dislike their stance on a controversy, which i detect interesting, ("wow I have been given 7 thumbs downs, people shouldn't consider me on that one!") not while that's abused nevertheless, and you get a thumbs down for doubtless no reason. to respond to AQUANUT, you get a element for each thumbs up and not something happens for a thumbs down.

Answer 3

Yes I know what you mean. This is so chronic on this forum if you resist it you just get annoyed and frustrated.
For me the problem lies in basic definitions of words.
Yahoo should define them fully before even getting into guidelines....
Words like QUESTION, ANSWER, ARGUMENT, DISAGREEMENT, OPINION, STATEMENT also the meaning of the symbol "?". For example.

At least if we were all clear on the meanings of these words it might but some sanity into the voting system for topics that tend to be contraversial.

But Yahoo has a relatively young demographic and today's education systems are even more messed up than they were,
so be prepared for the resultant confusions but definitely don't give up on trying to put some order into it !!

Answer 4

Everyone comes here to ask questions or to give opinions. Thumbs up or down is an individuals opinion. What's the big deal?

Answer 5

And you forgot they delete answers they don't want to hear or see, one's that hit too close to the mark.

Answer 6

They feel good after that tick