Is there any possibility to change best aswer in old question?

Question

My question is related to the recent contest:

https://meta.tibiaqa.com/1496/question-revival-contest

A lot of things change with time in Tibia, sometimes old answers are not current and we should answer with the best and current info. But on the other hand old questions are asked by users who often are not active on TibiaQA anymore. Is there any chance to get "best answer" in case when author of the post isn't active or simply missed this answer?

Answer 1

In general, the privilege to select the best answer should rest with the author of the question. This is an ultimate tool for them to say "this answer helped my particular case the best". If the author decided not to select the best answer, we should respect that and not select the best answer ourselves (even if the user is no longer active).

As a community, we should intervene only when the selected "Best answer" is hurting the quality and reliability of TibiaQA. If it becomes obvious that the current "Best answer" is no longer correct because e.g. another answer links to the official source of information and it proves the "best answer" is wrong, we should start a discussion on Meta TibiaQA with a request to change the best answer. The community and moderators can then decide to change the best answer, or at least remove the "best answer" sign from the existing answer.

Another thing that we might consider changing in general, is not having the "best answer" displayed as first by default. In which case only the amount of votes would determine the position of the answer. The community could then easily downvote the incorrect answer so that the correct answer rises to the top. Thoughts?

Best regards,
Sebastian

Comments

I like how the best answer is defaulted for new members who come to the site they want to instantly look at the first answer below. For frequent users like me I read all the answers to see which one is best. I think the amount of up votes making an answer displayed first can cause a problem. For example, an old answer might have 3 up votes but a new answer has 0 up votes. Majority of people will just see 3 up votes and realize this one is the best and only but they might not know to read all the answers below. However, I do like your idea if the best answer is clearly wrong we can start a discussion.

---

I started to think about it, because when I wanted to renew this question:
https://www.tibiaqa.com/563/how-to-be-a-boss-hunter-on-tibia
... and I noticed that the best answer is really poor quality with some additional incorrect info. Fortunately FPoPP is an active user, member of TibiaQA team and he can decide, but I was curious what we can do in similar case, when author of the question isn't active anymore.
I agree that community should intervene, but in my opinion much easier would be just flag the answer and then maybe moderator would decide what to do with this answer.

---

It would be easier, but I don't think such decisions should rely on a single person. Discussing it at the Meta TibiaQA level would also give us more transparency on what's happening with the answers in older questions, that don't get that much visibility otherwise.

---

Yea, you're right!

---

Hi! I have a question, how do I select the best answer for my question? If I asked something, as author, the answer I vote up will instantly be selected as the best? Or I need to click somewhere else?

---

You need to click the checkmark on the answer to the question that you're the author of.