Query For Ab Editor

[Quizmonster]

I posted an entry entitled High Time in the News section recently and have since then certainly not - unless by touching something inadvertently - chosen a 'Best Answer'. However, I now see that one such answer HAS been given that accolade. Since the chosen answer was the second one offered, how on earth would I or anyone else have chosen it as 'best'?
I am not trying to denigrate the answer, as such, but I was never aware that such choices were simply taken out of one's hands. My query, therefore, is: "Are they?"

[ummmm]

You've hit 'best answer' by accident.

Change it to an answer you'd prefer.

[Obiter]

I think QM is making a grammatical point; one out of two would be better, not best. However if more than two answers were offered then best would be correct, irrespective of its position in the list.

[Mamyalynne]

I thought Quizmonster was implying that the Ed and or Admin had chosen a 'Best answer' for that thread?

[Mamyalynne]

Which I can see no possible reason for them to do - as Ummmm says more likely a simple accidental button press.

[Bazile]

so , cant you have the best of two then ?

[Quizmonster]

Thank you; that's quite possible, Ummm, as I mentioned in my OP. The thing is that, as far as I can recall, I have never chosen a best answer despite having been here for so many years. The reason for that is the fact that I value all answers offered - even the offensive - and tend to believe that "comparisons are odious" on a site like AB.
Obiter, I did spot the possibility that my words might be interpreted as being a grammatical query, but by then they were in the public domain, as it were. They really weren't about grammar!
I do realise that, after twenty answers, there is nothing to prevent one from choosing even the very first as best. What I have never underrstood is how so many posters of queries DO allocate 'Best Answer' status before more than a handful of responses have even been offered. Clearly, I did not express myself very well above!

[Obiter]

Strictly speaking, no. Better of two, best of three or more.

[Quizmonster]

That's exactly what I imagined, Mamy!

Bazile, the sequence is good (for one thing), better (for two) and best (for three plus). That's the historical approach, but nowadays people are quite happy to use best for just two, as you suggest, though purists might say otherwise.

[Sqad]

Quizmonster

\\\What I have never underrstood is how so many posters of queries DO allocate 'Best Answer' status before more than a handful of responses have even been offered.\\

I agree entirely. I would imagine that there are only half a dozen ABers who really care about BEST ANSWERS and they wear their tally as a sort of "badge of office." If you go to Crosswords you will find one ABer giving a Best Answer to the first answer whether it be correct on not, which makes the real BEST ANSWER candidates look like tenderfoots as 1,000 Best Answers can be "knocked up" in less than a year.

I have never understood how one can have the BEST ANSWER of one answer only.

[Quizmonster]

Delighted to see someone agrees with me, Sqad!

[Obiter]

I agree too.

[Prudie]

It's all a can of worms! Sometimes 'Favourite' answer might be a better title. There are several answers to your question QM, sometimes posters may award a BA early on because it's a good way to show that they've actually read the answers so far, not just posted a question and toddled off somewhere else!
In your case you must have just hit it accaidentally as suggested - although I do know Ed can award best answers on other people's threads as I'm sure there was a bit of a hoo-ha about it last year sometime :-)

[jno]

easy enough to click accidentally on a random line that appears only on your own threads, I would have thought. Or even when a cat walks across your keyboard. I don't think you can revert to no-best-answer, but you can choose another to replace it, by getting your cat to repeat the process.

[Sqad]

Yahoo Answers have a BEST ANSWER system but Crosswords are excluded.

To me this is a better system and values the work that goes into...Best Answers.

[Quizmonster]

If your second paragraph is correct, Prudie, I would be quite concerned. Surely, the Editor should indicate openly that the chosen response is his/hers and not the OP's.
So-called 'best' answers almost invariably echo the OP's clear viewpoint in any case, even though, as answers, they are frequently atrocious! The one in the case I am talking about here certainly was in no way atrocious, but I didn't agree with it either!

[jno]

I suspect the Ed has better things to do with his time than marking rogue Best Answers, except maybe on April 1.

[Prudie]

You can change it QM.
Well maybe I was dreaming about the Ed thing (I don't think so) but am sure it doesn't 'ardly hever 'appen.

[Quizmonster]

I have very much missed Raffles treading across my keyboard for seven years now, J.
Whilst fully acknowledging that anyone can click something unintentionally, I am still perturbed that there IS some suspicion now that editorial staff MAY sometimes make choices that OPs do not.
Accordingly, the last two words of the original question here are still relevant; namely, "Are they?"

[jno]

well, in the absence of any official comment, I'd say "No". I stand open to correction, of course.

[Sqad]

jno.....quite.

But...the greatest abuse of BA is in the Crossword section by one particular and obvious ABer. It can easily be seen that ABers including Mods are availing themselves of this "frenzy of feeding" distorting and abusing the BA system.

Surely this can be pointed out to the "culprit" by one of the Mods in a quiet and diplomatic manner.

To me this is one of the functions of a Mod.........I may be wrong.