Yahoo! Singapore Answers blog

Recently, many of you wrote to us about unresolved questions and questions that are in tie-breaker status on the site. The best way to make sure no question remains undecided, is to resolve it either by picking a best answer, or putting it up for voting. Here is an overview of how the voting process works.

Voting for Best Answer

When a question is posted, it initially remains open for four days, but can be extended for a total of eight days.

>> If two or more answers are collected, you can either pick the Best Answer yourself, or let the community vote to choose the Best Answer. If you take no action to resolve the question, the answers are automatically put to a vote by the community. The asker of the question does not have the option of selecting “No Best Answer”– only the community has this power.

>> If your question receives only one answer, you can extend the open period for four additional days to allow more time for answers to be posted, or you can pick No Best Answer. If your question expires with only one answer, it automatically goes to a vote, with No Best Answer as the second option that voters can pick. If the answer wins the vote, your question becomes resolved. However, if the No Best Answer option wins the vote, the question is automatically deleted and you get five points credited back to your Answers account.

>> If a question doesn’t receive any answers in the allotted time, it expires and is deleted.

A question becomes a Resolved Question when a Best Answer is chosen, and then it remains available on Yahoo! Answers for searching and browsing. The Best Answer remains open to receive comments and ratings from the community.

How do I put my question up for voting?

If you take no action and the question expires, it automatically goes to a vote. Or:

1. Wait at least four hours after posting the question.
2. Go to the question within the open period, before it expires.
3. Click Edit in the action bar below the question.
4. Select Ask for a Vote in the edit menu.

How do I find questions up for voting?

1. Go to the category of your choice.
2. Select the In Voting tab.
3. Sort the unresolved questions as you like.

What’s a tiebreaker?
If the vote ends as a tie, your question remains in voting as a tiebreaker. Once a vote has been cast, the question is checked shortly afterwards to determine if there is a best answer. There are tons of questions out there waiting to be voted on because they’re in tiebreaker status. Vote so you can get these questions resolved.

As you can see, voting makes a huge difference. If you choose an area you are expert in, you can easily vote for the best answer. If you choose a category you don’t know much about, you end up learning a lot by reading the answers. You can pick the best answer, based on detail, helpful tone and general quality, without having to be an expert.

Have more questions? Let us know.