Who exactly votes?

There is a lot more misinformation in the forum discussions today compared to a few years ago in just about any online Q&A forum, not just Food52.

It is a particular shame to see it in discussions about food safety here at Food52.

Well CV as the asker I am awarding you best answer, especially regarding info based on what I can only think is an unintended quirk in the software, that if you are logged out you can see the votes but not when you are logged in. At least I never see them when logged in and like creamtea normally only see them if I vote myself for a response. You are so right about the implications of this designation. It is something I have wondered about for a while but it was actually reading responses to a recent safety question that made me think the whole thing might be a bad idea.

I would guess if it has 4 more people agree to that answer than to other answers?

I sometimes use it if I think someone gave a good answer to a question. Like if I'm about to answer a question, but someone else has already covered what I would have suggested - but I only recall doing this a handful of times.

The only way to see how many "agrees" is to click the "agree" button.

anyway, I agree that just hitting the "agree" button isn't an indicator of how good the answer is. I don't think the "best answer" changes to another choice, or at least it didn't in the past (?) but I may be wrong.

A few more observations.

Only registered users can vote, but as mentioned before the vote from an experienced longtime community member who has contributed a lot does not get weighed any more than a post-and-run, one-shot wonder who signed up ten minutes ago to leave a drive-by question never to reply, thank or contribute anything back to the community.

The "Best Answer" designation is really a misnomer in 2017. It might have been more plausible five years ago. The way the Food52 community has evolved in the past couple of years, "Most Popular Reply" would be a more accurate designation today.

I'm not calling out Food52 because it has happened in many other places, but online community forum systems written five years ago often have not evolved to adjust to today's Internet usage habits.

Topics for the Food52 staff to consider but I would be surprised if they haven't already discussed this at some point in a recent staff meeting.

As has been surmised, it is indeed tied to the "I agree!" button. If you have questions or comments about the site itself, you can always contact us at [email protected], it's a more direct way to reach us and ensures we'll see it faster!

cv, yes I read it. This question was within another thread. Lindsay-Jean responded and agreed it is computer generated. Maybe she can assist.

As far as I can tell, it is ***COMPLETELY*** tied to the "I agree" button.

An answer that gets three votes gets labeled as Best Answer, but if another answer is overtakes that vote tally, the new favorite will gain the Best Answer label.

From my observations, the polls are never closed. You can vote on ancient answers in five-year old threads.

The forum system forbids one from voting on any answer twice, but it does not forbid you for clicking on the "I Agree" button for two or more answers in the same thread.

The "I Agree" button is basically a thumbs up.

There is apparently no editorial intervention and there is no weighing to the votes. A longtime community member's "I Agree" vote is worth the same as someone who signed up two minutes ago.

Hi, caninechef!
A number of weeks ago this was addressed on a another thread but I can't find it.
It's computer-generated. Has to do with how many times the question was viewed and how many 'I agree's' are logged which doesn't take many.