When you guys ask questions, do you realize?

Question

So you have a lot of people on here that have PhDs and are even considered the top in their field. I know a lot of you ask homework questions and could care less, but do you realize that when choose as best, answers that; clearly don't understand what you are asking, or clearly don't understand the subject matter, or are merely repeating what someone more qualified has already said
that you drive away the more qualified people on here and lower the overall quality of answers you get?

Do you care?

I've noticed some of our best answerers have just slowly migrated away as they lose patience. I don't think they care if they get best answer, but when there are no other answers that are even good and they don't get chosen, why bother to keep answering?

Mangled question? I think most here get the idea. Thanks for answering my question despite the lack of clarity.

Answer 1

Hmm. Interesting question; not something I've given much thought to, so thanks for shining a light on it!

Now, I completely agree with you that people shouldn't answer questions that clearly don't understand what you're asking or clearly don't understand the subject matter! I myself rarely venture down here in the Science and Mathematics section b/c I don't want to give somebody the wrong answer! However, I do sometimes answer biology, chemistry and calculus questions as those are the subjects I've been taking in school. Now I'll be the first to tell you that I'm the least qualified of all these answerers, as I merely hold a High School Diploma, and one year's worth of university education. This is precisely the reason I rarely venture down here, although I do but only if one of the three below conditions are being met:

1) it is a subject I thoroughly enjoy - more likely paid attention in class and got a higher mark.

2) it is a subject I've recently been taking, so as to ensure the knowledge is fresh in my mind (and I am up to date on the current changes etc as we know science is ever-changing).

3) it is an aspect of the subject I have studied in detail.

But yes, I love to answer genetics questions once in a while that primarily deal with my level, or lower level of study as it is my favourite biology subject.

Now, as for repeating something someone more qualified has said; I do quote my own profs on certain things, even on other forums. I do this mostly when I see a question that isn't getting good answers, or any answers at all! Or sometimes, if I've been doing research on a topic for a while (and haven't particularly studied it, I will still answer, but most likely cite my sources). I've given answers to sex-related questions before as well, based on common facts I hear in bio class, like for eg about viagra, or erections, etc. Now, I don't have extensive knowledge on this subject, but I will state the facts I've learned anyway (keep it brief), and hope that if my answer is not extensive enough that someone more qualified (like yourself) will come along and add to it. But yes, I generally stay away from this area unless I'm quite sure b/c this is one section I would hate to be wrong! In this regard, the opinion questions are easier! :P

I can tell you I'm guilty of giving a best answer to a wrong answer before! See, I was working on a chem lab, and I couldn't figure out one particular question, so I posted it twice, and got the same type of answers. Now eventually I figured out how to do the question properly before submitting my lab, but the answers I had gotten from yahoo were all wrong (both times!) sad isn't it? So I didn't know what to do; there is no option for "no best answer" which should be there, so I gave the first person who'd made some effort best answer, although it was wrong. See, I'm a very mushy person, and sometimes it makes me sad to see that someone made an effort, even though they were wrong, and I'll still give them the points to boost their ego. It would obviously help though, if yahoo had that option.

And I hope that this behaviour isn't driving the qualified people away; if anyting urging them on to prove their point b/c we NEED more people like you! I would have been happier if someone more qualified had answered my question then! And I do care! The main reason I added you to my contacts was becasue I saw that the answers you gave were well-reasoned, researched, and logical. So, I really hope that you know that some of us do care! So keep on going, b/c you guys are very much appreciated!

I think that if you see a wrong answer, there are some good ways that yahoo has implemented that allow us to communicate the correct knowledge to people. There are 4 things we could do show our dislike for the wrong answer:

1) Comment on the wrong answer to let the questioner know it is wrong.

2) Give thumbs down to discourage people from giving wrong answers.

3) Give thumbs up to qualified people who give good answers, to encourage them to keep answering.

4) E-mail the asker telling them the right answer, and the answerer so they are more careful in the future, and if possible e-mailing the better answerer as well, to encourage them and let them know somebody noticed they did a good job!

I think in this way, we can both prevent anwerers from giving wrong answers, AND keep the good answerers around and encourage them to stay!

It feels like I just wrote an essay! Sorry! Just my two cents! =)

Answer 2

I have seen many answers chosen that were neither best nor correct.

My best guess is that in some cases the asker does not know enough about the subject to distinguish between a correct answer and a false one. Judging by the voting process afterward, a high percentage of others can't distinguish between them either.

Answer 3

Yeah, I feel ya...

As a teacher, I don't (in general) respond to the students who spam their questions on here from homework or tests. I'm not a big fan of laziness, and I won't reward it for those students who try to get those of us on this board to do their work for them. I'm sure as heck not going to "name the prts of the repr. sys of the frg", or respond to "whch prt of cell is were ATP is made"...ugh. Whether students like this get these questions answered correctly on this board or not doesn't concern me--they get what they deserve.

The only exceptions are those questions I see that I know the majority of my students have trouble with. These tend toward the ecological in nature, evolution, and some of the issues in Mendelian heredity. But I rarely ever just jump out and tell them the answer. I like to "lead" them in the right direction.

Edit: And, yeah, no PhD here, either. Just a simple high school bio teacher.

Answer 4

Ah, the unrest in the biology ranks is swelling!

Yes, we answerers do get annoyed, but it's also fun to just answer, sometimes. . .But I'm no PhD, just a mere Phi Beta Kappa. . .

Unfortunately, people who post questions of the mundane and unthinking manner will not read your question.

What do you propose we do? I just gives thumbs-down to people with poor answers, then explain why they were wrong in my own. But that doesn't always help, alas.

We could, as a rule, refuse to answer obvious homework questions - and those that can be easily solved by using any search engine.

Answer 5

Personally, I'm here for the fun of it.
I don't go for best answer.
I go for clearest simplest answer.
I will answer a homework question if I feel the asker is really stuck, with the required explanation.
I avoid the homework question lists, (and love to see it when they are left with multiple choice answers so they are called upon to do the work anyway).

Answer 6

I put a comment on answers that are chosen as best but are incorrect.

I used to be a top contributor, but lost my badges when I took a one-week vacation out of town. I'm more bummed about losing my badges than I am about people choosing wrong answers - it's their fault when they're wrong.

As far as homework goes:
I try to step people through math questions or process-related questions. I tend to nag them about looking it up if it's a multiple-choice-type thing.

Answer 7

oh my god!took ages to read through firstly the droll question then the equally boring answers.some of us come on here just to while away time and aren't too concerned whether the answers are good or correct in fact i tend to like the sarcastic answers or the funny ones not the total brain numbing ones.i think you all think too deeply and if you are so concerned re what is right or wrong go to college or uni not faff about on yahoo answers where you are correct most of the answers are trash but then some of the questions are equally dumb and the person doing the asking could save 5 points using google but are generally to lazy or couldn't give a damn about the points or the answers.

Answer 8

after attempting two times to read your mangled "question," i am just going to tell you that no, i do not personally care.