You are your own best answer?

May 11, 2011 9:54 PM

I noticed that in this Ask Me thread, the original poster marked one of his responses as best answer. Does this happen a lot and I've just never noticed it before? I'm not sure it's worth changing, just sorta ... odd.
posted by bluedaisy to MetaFilter-Related at 9:54 PM (79 comments total)

Happens rarely. Think we've talked about it before. Gets some people GRARy.
posted by 6550 at 9:58 PM on May 11, 2011

How people handle "favorites" and/or "best answer" is dependent as to how they interact with the web and/or metafilter... pay no attention to it....you're not their psychiatrist.
posted by tomswift at 9:58 PM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Sure, it happens. I do it. When you come back to a thread to say "hey, this is what I did," you're essentially answering the question with the best possible answer it could get. (I've also seen it used in contentious threads where the asker wants to draw attention to a point a lot of answerers are missing.) The way I see it, most of the time this is a feature, not a bug.
posted by phunniemee at 10:01 PM on May 11, 2011 [6 favorites]

I marked my answer as best answer because it was one of the best answers. In fact, it was the very best answer, because it describes exactly how I solved my problem.

Do you often call someone out in MeTa without letting them know or leaving a note in the thread? I'm not sure that's worth changing, but it seems kind of odd.
posted by John Cohen at 10:05 PM on May 11, 2011 [17 favorites]

I favorite my own answers occasionally because I find myself witty, and so that I can get back to it more easily after it has been pushed off my recent activity page. It is also something my therapist suggested as a reaffirming way to boost my confidence. If we can't love ourselves, who can we love?

I think phunniemee is correct in that whenever an asker posts what his or her response or decision was, by definition it is a best answer (at least to them).
posted by JohnnyGunn at 10:13 PM on May 11, 2011 [3 favorites]

OK, I see that you've now added a note in the thread, in response to my comment. In the future, if someone is going to call me out in MetaTalk, I would appreciate if they would let me know at the time so I can respond. It was pure chance that I noticed it in this case.
posted by John Cohen at 10:14 PM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Ka! Or is it "mu!" in this case? I can never remember.
posted by boo_radley at 10:15 PM on May 11, 2011

I like to favourite lots of my own comments so I can later unfavourite them at strategic moments in order to keep my favourites total on particularly auspicious numbers for longer.

Not really, I just thought of that now...
posted by pompomtom at 10:20 PM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

Er, I was just asking because I hadn't noticed this before. John, I didn't mean to call you out so much as use your post as an example of something I hadn't previously realized was possible. My apologies.
posted by bluedaisy at 10:22 PM on May 11, 2011

It's not like best answers can be redeemed for prizes (unless you like to obsess), so who cares how the asker choses to allocate them? Besides, if we're going to go down that road then the problem of the asker never marking any best answers or never adding the resolved tag despite having their question answered in detail is much more of a pernicious threat to site integrity than someone occasionally marking their own.
posted by Rhomboid at 10:22 PM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

I don't have any problems with this whatsoever. Best answers are not part of a contest or anything. If the OP has offered a solution that works, it may well be a best answer. In the thread that you call upon, John Cohen's comment is definitely a best answer, in my opinion.
posted by .kobayashi. at 10:26 PM on May 11, 2011

My problem is that I tend to mark all the answers as best, as long as they attempt to answer the question, because I don't want people to feel bad or left out. Yeah, I know, I'm working on it. I'm going to try to either mark none as best or only one the next time around.
posted by 1000monkeys at 10:38 PM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

I put frosting on my own answers, every one.

Then I eat 'em.
posted by carsonb at 10:46 PM on May 11, 2011

When you come back to a thread to say "hey, this is what I did," you're essentially answering the question with the best possible answer it could get.

plannedchaos? Is that you?
posted by Diablevert at 11:00 PM on May 11, 2011

I've done this. If you end up finding the best answer to your own question, why wouldn't you mark it as such?
posted by ODiV at 11:09 PM on May 11, 2011

Do you often call someone out in MeTa without letting them know or leaving a note in the thread?

This really needs its own MeTa post. And we need one to that effect as well. And that one. And this one. But not this one, that would be stupid.
posted by George_Spiggott at 11:11 PM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

Do you often call someone out in MeTa without letting them know or leaving a note in the thread? I'm not sure that's worth changing, but it seems kind of odd.

This isn't really calling someone out though, at least not by any reasonable traditional definition of "calling out" by metatalk standards; bluedaisy is saying "I'm curious about this site behavior that strikes me as odd", not "this is bad behavior and needs redressing".

A note in the thread if it's something where the original poster/commenter/instigating-mefite's specific response to the subject is central to the discussion is a pretty good idea; where that's not so much the issue, it may be a polite thing to do depending but it's not really as much of an issue.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:33 PM on May 11, 2011 [2 favorites]

Why doesn't this thread have a set of links to Bollywood dance numbers on YouTube? This is an egregious breach of MetaTalk etiquette.
posted by Meatbomb at 11:43 PM on May 11, 2011

John Cohen also marked invisible ink's answer as a best answer, FWIW.

Use the best answer function to mark the best answer (or answers) in a thread -- regardless of whose answer that may be. That's how we keep AskMe the great resource that it is both for askers as well as for people searching the archives.
posted by armage at 11:48 PM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

I've always found the self-best-answerer to come across as self-congratulatory. Why bother asking the question if you already know the answer? If you don't know the answer and found your best solution through the supplied answers, great! Give credit where it's due.

Just my $0.02
posted by coriolisdave at 11:50 PM on May 11, 2011 [1 favorite]

On an analagous topic, I often manually sitmulate my own genitalia to achieve orgasm - partly because I find myself incredibly sexy. But mainly because no-one else does. Which itself is partly because I talk about masturbation all the time. It's a vicious circle jerk. My question, however, is: should this comment go in the FAQ? I hope not, because it makes me sounds like a wanker. So please don't read any of this - thanks.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 1:52 AM on May 12, 2011 [13 favorites]

I took it as John put in what worked for him based on the answers he got.
posted by arcticseal at 2:04 AM on May 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

I have asked a question, and then eventually found my own answer. I returned to the thread to document it, and marked it best, in case someone else has a similar question/challenge. Nothing odd about it at all.
posted by terrapin at 3:11 AM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Well, the one odd thing about it is that you are a terrapin. I thought this was a website for HUMANS, but I guess nowadays they let in any ol' chelonian living in fresh or brackish water. This is just another a farcical result of MetaFilter's "anything goes" brand of crazy liberalism.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 4:16 AM on May 12, 2011 [8 favorites]

I like how John Cohen used the Best Answer feature here. He marked others which he found the most helpful as best as well and in his own best answer he was grateful, said thank you to all & then described how he solved his problem using the info he got from the community. In the future, it is a good way for him & others to look & say, "ohh, that's what happened."
I have noticed in the past on a few (very few maybe) occasions OPs doing this where it stuck me as argumentative or self-aggrandizing but to me, this was a good use of it. YMMV
posted by pointystick at 4:23 AM on May 12, 2011 [6 favorites]

I've always found the self-best-answerer to come across as self-congratulatory. Why bother asking the question if you already know the answer? If you don't know the answer and found your best solution through the supplied answers, great! Give credit where it's due.

posted by coriolisdave at 7:50 AM on May 12

My sentiments exactly.
posted by Decani at 4:34 AM on May 12, 2011

And then coming in to the metatalk thread bitching about not being told about a callout that wasn't really a callout at all? Christ, what an asshole.
posted by Grither at 4:40 AM on May 12, 2011 [5 favorites]

Kinda like someone favoriting their own stupid comments in metatalk.
posted by Grither at 4:53 AM on May 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

I always thought that highlighting the solution was the purpose of the "resolved" tag.
posted by gaspode at 4:54 AM on May 12, 2011

I've had one or two questions where I ended up finding the ostensible best answer as a result of answers from others. I was tempted to mark my own as best, but it just seemed wrong.
posted by tommasz at 5:09 AM on May 12, 2011

I thought the point of "best answer" was to help future readers, not to reward answerers. If somebody coming to the question in the future wants a bag that meets the same criteria, then the OP's last comment is actually the most useful and best answer.
posted by that's how you get ants at 5:19 AM on May 12, 2011 [8 favorites]

JohnnyGunn: "It is also something my therapist suggested as a reaffirming way to boost my confidence."

The second time I brought up Metafilter in therapy, I'd been with my therapist for about seven months, and by then felt comfortable enough to share some of my more esoteric interests with her. She observed that it seemed like I had a lot emotionally invested in the site, and asked me to describe why I liked it so much. After I gushed about the refreshing discourse on the Blue, the high expectations of quality on the Green, and the entertaining yet snarky self-reflection on the Grey, she paused for a moment and suggested delicately that I might, maybe, possibly, consider reading something different once in a while.

What do you guys think?
posted by Phire at 5:20 AM on May 12, 2011 [4 favorites]

DTMFA.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 5:22 AM on May 12, 2011 [8 favorites]

What do you guys think?

Your therapist is a traitor. Doesn't she realize how much business the green sends her way?
posted by FishBike at 5:22 AM on May 12, 2011 [7 favorites]

coriolisdave: "I've always found the self-best-answerer to come across as self-congratulatory. Why bother asking the question if you already know the answer? If you don't know the answer and found your best solution through the supplied answers, great! Give credit where it's due."

I've self-bested a couple of times before. This thread comes to mind, for instance. I asked because I didn't know the answer. I found my best solution by fiddling (which maybe I should have spent more time on before posting, but whatever). Best solution marking isn't for credit, it isn't for points, it isn't for ego-rubbing. It's for future readers to be able to look and say "ah, this one solved the poster's problem the best". If it's by the poster himself, big whoop.
posted by Plutor at 5:34 AM on May 12, 2011

It's not your question, and "best answer" isn't a prize. Get over it.

Also, lurk moar.

OK, required MeTa snark over with, now you get a hug! Because everyone needs one of those!
posted by Eideteker at 5:40 AM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

I live in fear of accidentally favoriting one of my own posts in the mobile view of MetaFilter with my huge, fat fingers, and then looking like an enormous douchebag. I doubt I'd have the moral courage to best-answer my own answer in an AskMe thread. But I can see how it might work - if you asked a question, then where pointed to a good resource, went and researched, found precisely the right solution and then posted it for the enlightenment of others - at which point it would be useful for other people with the same question to be able to scroll down.

I can see that someone might not be totally impartial about how good their response actually is, but on the other hand it feels less iffy than marking as best answer the one answer that says you should propose to your ex/send the banjo/cheat back among 100 responses bellowing "Noooo" in slow motion.
posted by running order squabble fest at 5:41 AM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

where = were. I = fat-fingered d-bag.
posted by running order squabble fest at 5:42 AM on May 12, 2011

Cortex, calling what I did "odd" is a callout. ("Odd" is the same word I used!) If you disagree with my word choice, fine. It was close enough to a callout that I would have appreciated some notice that people are going to be critiquing me in this thread so I have the option of reading it and responding. I think this is pretty straightforward.
posted by John Cohen at 5:48 AM on May 12, 2011

running order squabble fest: I live in fear of accidentally favoriting one of my own posts in the mobile view of MetaFilter with my huge, fat fingers, and then looking like an enormous douchebag.

Yeah, well, I always fear davey_darling's reaction when I favourite one of TPS's contributions.
posted by gman at 5:53 AM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

It was close enough to a callout that I would have appreciated some notice that people are going to be critiquing me in this thread so I have the option of reading it and responding.

Your name wasn't brought up until you left your first comment. Self-besting is (as the responses above show) a common enough occurrence that most people wouldn't have bothered trying to decipher who it was who'd done this recently. It was in no way a callout of you until you made it one. Even if it had been an actual callout, it would have (again, responses above) been one that lost steam quickly because a lot of people do it.

Being weirdly aggressive in response to something complete benign, however, would be a perfectly fine callout. So here we are: You're being weirdly aggressive in response to something completely benign, and you should probably stop.
posted by SpiffyRob at 6:03 AM on May 12, 2011 [10 favorites]

To be honest, I would only mark my answer as best answer if I independently answered the question myself, either on my own based on additional research, or with the help of the other answers (which would also be marked best).

If you're just posting what you did as a summary, I think that can just be handled by the marking that shows you are the asker, and by marking it as resolved.
posted by smackfu at 6:04 AM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

I live in fear of accidentally favoriting one of my own posts in the mobile view of MetaFilter with my huge, fat fingers, and then looking like an enormous douchebag

Don't worry about such things! We should just be glad that MetaFilter replaced the horrible freedom of people conversing with one another and making friends with a simple, "point-and-click" method of interacting.

And I don't say that just because I actually despise every single one of you worthless, sub-human slug-botherers, and would rather grate off my own face than communicate with you in any meaningful fashion. I say it because I really enjoy pointing and clicking.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 6:26 AM on May 12, 2011 [5 favorites]

FAVORITE THIS COMMENT IF YOU CAME HERE FROM DERREN BROWN'S LINK
posted by running order squabble fest at 6:30 AM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

If someone started a MeTa about me being "odd" (any takers on that?), I would find it hilarious if I stumbled on it a week later without having known about it the whole time and reading through it seeing all the "Why hasn't Gator shown up to respond to these allegations off oddness?" comments. But then, I visit MeTa every day, so I guess there won't be any stealth oddness MeTas about me that I fail to notice. Sigh.
posted by Gator at 6:42 AM on May 12, 2011

My favorite friends on facebook are the ones who like everything they post.
posted by pazazygeek at 6:50 AM on May 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

But then, I visit MeTa every day, so I guess there won't be any stealth oddness MeTas about me that I fail to notice. Sigh.

Vigilance, always vigilance with the so-called Gator. Someday, you'll let your guard down or forget to visit MeTa over a long weekend, and then I shall strike. Oh yes.

Preview: Does anyone else think Gator is odd? I think he's odd. He's not here today, so let's bitch about him. Oh shit, here he comes, hide!
posted by Admiral Haddock at 6:56 AM on May 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

I'm totally for the asker marking their comment as best answer when it gives good info – and this one does. It's very convenient to scan through and see what the poster found most helpful. Sometimes the poster ends up finding a solution that nobody else came up with, and sometimes they add more info to pointers that other people gave. I've never found this weird at all... quite the contrary. Featurish, not Buggish!

Of course some people do use it to get sassy, but that was obviously not the case here.
posted by taz at 7:02 AM on May 12, 2011

I think it's not the best answer because he bought a Zappos bag instead of a Timbuk2 bag.
posted by fuq at 7:05 AM on May 12, 2011

You've tried the self-rest. Now try the self-best.
posted by staggernation at 7:11 AM on May 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

Does anyone else think Gator is odd? I think he's odd.

Well, we should examine whether he is divisible by 2, perhaps with an axe or large saw of some sort. But I suppose if he was divided into two, then he would be two-faced. But it would be rude to suggest that Gator is two-faced, ergo we should go with odd, for politeness' sake. What an oddball. Let's get the saw.
posted by the quidnunc kid at 7:13 AM on May 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

Here's what I find odd interesting about this debate: there's already functionality to highlight responses that the original poster makes. So, if you're going to post a follow-up at the end of a question that summarizes the best answer or the solution you used, it's already extra-visible because of the little bar at the side. Marking yourself as best answer destroys that little side-highlight.

If I'm reading through long-dead questions for a solution to something (and if I'm not interested in going through the whole thread), I'll read all the ones highlighted as "best answer" plus all of the asker's response. If I'm really rushed I'll just scroll down to the bottom and read the last thing the asker posted to see if he/she actually was helped by the responses.

I guess my point is that I don't feel like people that mark their own answers as best look like wankers, so much as break some of the functionality of the site and it just doesn't make sense to me.
posted by backseatpilot at 7:24 AM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Gator's behavior that one time was definitely sorta ... odd. It really appears to be pretty gauche until you think about it for five minutes. I will publicly note my curiosity about Gator's odd behavior, with no intention of impugning Gator's reputation of course. I don't even think it's worth it to fix now.
posted by Dano St at 7:32 AM on May 12, 2011

Cortex, calling what I did "odd" is a callout.

Putting a note in a thread for a MeTa that is mostly just using your thread as an example is a courtesy, not something that needs to be done. MetaTalk is what we tell people to use if they are having a concern or question about how the site works that could use community input or if they have trouble with something going on. We'd like it to be a place where people can ask questions without people getting shirty with them for doing it wrong. Wanting a notification in AskMe is fine, mocking the poster's phrasing to get that point across is a little less terrific.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:34 AM on May 12, 2011 [8 favorites]

Here's what I find odd interesting about this debate: there's already functionality to highlight responses that the original poster makes.

Worth pointing out that that functionality is relatively (a couple of years, maybe?) new. I think.
posted by SpiffyRob at 7:36 AM on May 12, 2011

Also Best Answer marks appear in the side bar, OP comments don't.
posted by Mitheral at 7:49 AM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

I understood AskMe as being a resource for not just the asker, but for hypothetical other people looking up the same question on the internet. (This is how I found MetaFilter in the first place.) Finding out what the asker ended up doing, especially if it ended up working out for them, seems like a very obvious and logical "best answer" for those later folks with the same question. AskMe's not always all about the person asking the question.
posted by mstokes650 at 8:04 AM on May 12, 2011 [1 favorite]

Also Best Answer marks appear in the side bar, OP comments don't.

Ha, yeah, it says "so-and-so had a best answer in xxxx." I always figured that was highlighting your contacts good contributions, so marking your own and having it show up there is rather odd.
posted by smackfu at 8:05 AM on May 12, 2011

So is shirty the new fighty? Awesome! Great!
posted by arcticseal at 8:08 AM on May 12, 2011

smackfu: Ha, yeah, it says "so-and-so had a best answer in xxxx." I always figured that was highlighting your contacts good contributions, so marking your own and having it show up there is rather odd.

You can also have all the activity you've chosen to show up for your contacts in the sidebar show up for yourself by putting your own user number at the very end of this link, after the equal sign.

http://www.metafilter.com/contribute/xfnlinkbuilder.mefi?to_user=
posted by gman at 8:14 AM on May 12, 2011

It can be abused though - [1] [2] Christ, what an asshole and [3]
Old threads, so no link back.
After I first suggested that it should be doable and mathowie said okay but it shouldn't be abused, I kept my eye out for a while but then fell into apathy.
posted by unliteral at 8:31 AM on May 12, 2011

Man, sometimes I just don't get MeTa. Marking the best answer is a signpost for future askers of a similar question. Those people don't care who left the best answer, as long as it is helpful. Maybe that's the OP, maybe it's not. Who the fuck cares?
posted by Aquaman at 8:44 AM on May 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

Marking the best answer is a sign of who won the thread, and marking yourself as the winner is cheating.
posted by smackfu at 8:52 AM on May 12, 2011 [2 favorites]

I've done it! And I would do it again! Why?
- I found another answer somewhere else that was in the end the best way out
- I hodge-podged suggestions from the existing answers
- For some reason I wanted to draw attention to for example a summary of the answers or that one was actually a terrible suggestion.
posted by whatzit at 8:53 AM on May 12, 2011

"Cortex, calling what I did "odd" is a callout. ("Odd" is the same word I used!) If you disagree with my word choice, fine. It was close enough to a callout that I would have appreciated some notice that people are going to be critiquing me in this thread so I have the option of reading it and responding. I think this is pretty straightforward."

Lighten up, Francis.
posted by klangklangston at 8:54 AM on May 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

Personally, I like to mark my AskMes "resolved" before anyone posts, so there is not even a question who the winner is.

Hint: It's this guy. High five.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 8:54 AM on May 12, 2011 [3 favorites]

And yeah, to just sort of reiterate the official position on besting your own answer: it's fine to do, Best Answers are abstract in the same way as favorites, and if you're not somehow being a jerk about it there's zero issue.

The flip side is that there's no way to get away from the optics issue: different people have different feelings about how and whether self-besting or self-favoriting should be used or at what point the line from totally defensible to sort of dicey is crossed. Some stuff will seem obviously obnoxious to a large group of people; other stuff will seem off to a smaller group who feel more strongly about the borderline stuff.

Different folks have different takes on this stuff, as the discussion in here makes clear. I don't think anyone should not best their own answer just because other people might squint at it, but at the same time if you're concerned about the squinting there are other approaches available, and it's pretty much a personal call about how to handle all that.

None of that really is in any sort of actionable territory from a mod perspective; I can contrive a situation where it would be, but "contrive" is the key word here because I don't think it's ever really been a substantial issue.
posted by cortex (staff) at 9:09 AM on May 12, 2011

It would never have occurred to me to mark my own "How I actually solved this" note as a best answer, but in retrospect I can understand the logic.

FWIW though, the asker's remarks are already clearly distinguished from others, and personally I always like to look towards the bottom of a thread to see what "wrap up" comments the asker posted. So as long as you actually say what worked for you, that's enough for me.
posted by philipy at 11:26 AM on May 12, 2011

Does this happen a lot and I've just never noticed it before?

According to the most recent Infodump, this has happened 1,307 times. That's out of 158,839 best answers in total. So while it's not a large percentage of all best answers, it's certainly not unheard-of for an asker to mark their own answer "best".
posted by FishBike at 5:16 PM on May 12, 2011

The most problematic part of said comment is how greatly it reads like an ad for Zappos. Disturbing.
posted by nonmerci at 7:01 PM on May 12, 2011

This does not read as a callout by any interpretation I agree with. I think you are being defensive, John Cohen, when no defensiveness is warranted. Which is understandable; we all do that when we think we're being criticized. But there's a difference between criticism and what was going on here.

the "does this happen a lot" phrasing is your main hint!
posted by neuromodulator at 8:42 PM on May 12, 2011

This does not read as a callout by any interpretation I agree with. I think you are being defensive, John Cohen, when no defensiveness is warranted.

How fortunate we are that such a capable therapist is amongst us.
posted by sgt.serenity at 1:02 AM on May 13, 2011

I'm trying to point out that maybe his interpretation is skewed. I'm not sure why you think that deserves snark. Is it my tone you're making fun of? Or the message? Seriously puzzled.
posted by neuromodulator at 9:11 AM on May 13, 2011

(And it's not a "holier than thou" kind of thing. It's a "I wish I had a little voice in my head that pointed out when I was being overly defensive at work yesterday" thing.)
posted by neuromodulator at 9:14 AM on May 13, 2011

Kinda like someone favoriting their own stupid comments in metatalk.

Welcome to AOL dial-up!
posted by y2karl at 9:29 AM on May 13, 2011

I've done it. I mentioned my question on my personal blog and someone there supplied me with the answer, so I updated my own question with that answer and marked it best because it was in fact the answer.

The alternatives would have been for me to tell the person who actually told me the answer to get a mefi account and answer my question so that I could mark his answer best, or for me just not to post a comment with the answer (rather selfish since someone else might find the question later) or for me to post a comment with the answer and not mark it best (even though it is the best).
posted by kenko at 9:34 AM on May 13, 2011

Why bother asking the question if you already know the answer?

You're missing the possibility that they didn't know, asked, got some rubbish answers, so went out and found the answer for themselves.

I don't care who had the best answer but I'd rather people reported back with the right answer to their post and marked it as such - rather than not and the next person who reads it hasn't a clue what the right answer is.
posted by mr_silver at 11:00 AM on May 14, 2011

This. I just returned to that thread, hoping John had at least updated it with his final choice (I'm kind of a bag guy myself...). As it turned out, what he actually bought wasn't suggested by someone else. He found it himself, so the best answer to his question, literally, was his own...

I'm more confused by this MeTa than I was by seeing the thread...?
posted by OneMonkeysUncle at 9:23 AM on May 15, 2011

Hey, I just did this! There were tons of good suggestions in my questions, and the ones who suggested what turned out to be the correct answer got 'best answer' marks, but I wound up investigating a bit and finding the definitive answer so gave one to myself as well.

(A popular question, so here, have a look, and then maybe some soy chile broccoli for dinner. =)
posted by carsonb at 10:40 AM on May 15, 2011