Is there a reason why I can't mark my own answer as best in Ask MetaFilter?

April 11, 2005 10:17 PM

Is there a reason why I can't mark my own answer as best in Ask MetaFilter?
posted by tellurian to Feature Requests at 10:17 PM (22 comments total)

This a zen koan, isn't it?
posted by crunchland at 10:23 PM on April 11, 2005

Because ask me is not for stroking ones ego... ???
posted by Dreamghost at 10:35 PM on April 11, 2005

because if you knew the answer, you wouldn't be asking the question?
posted by dhruva at 10:57 PM on April 11, 2005

I can see your point there Dreamghost. I hadn't thought of asking a question, answering it myself and marking it as best so that I could stroke my ego, but maybe others would. It does limit the usefulness of the search when limit to those with best answers only? is selected though.
On preview: dhruva - I didn't know when I asked, but I was able to answer it later.
Am I the only person this has happened to?
posted by tellurian at 11:07 PM on April 11, 2005

I think you're an exception. I say this in the nicest possible way :)
posted by dhruva at 11:35 PM on April 11, 2005

There are very good reasons for being able to mark your own answer as the best.

Let's say you have a computer problem and submit a question about it. Various people attempt to answer the question but are unsuccessful. Eventually you stumble upon a solution, or someone you know in the real world helps you out. Now you truly have the best solution to the problem but you can't mark it as the best solution because, umm, well for some reason.

Let's face it guys, if you want to stroke your ego round here there's lots of better ways to do it. For a start there is no count of who's provided the most best answers - and mathowie's made it clear there won't be one, that the best answer tag is simply there to make the resource more useful.

Lots of other features on this site trust us not to behave like idiots, and yet in this one area we have a restriction that is actually very unhelpful. You could post pictures of yourself in comments, have your user name scrolling and blinking across the page, make your user name a tag (you know who I mean), and indulge in all other kinds of self-aggrandisement but you can't mark your own answer as the best.

I just don't get it.
posted by dodgygeezer at 4:15 AM on April 12, 2005

I reckon that the next time a MeFite has a burning question about yoga classes in Ubud, he or she can read through that voluminous thread without too much trouble.

There may be occasions when being able to mark your own answer to your own question as best answer would be useful, but this particular example isn't a very good one.
posted by anapestic at 4:56 AM on April 12, 2005

I wanted to do this when I was searching for a specific computer program, here. (I eventually found the right one)
posted by null terminated at 5:33 AM on April 12, 2005

Patting yourself on the back could establish a dangerous precedent.
posted by AlexReynolds at 7:43 AM on April 12, 2005

It would set the precedent that I'm a great guy. I see no shame in that.
posted by Plutor at 8:58 AM on April 12, 2005

If a tree falls in the forest. . .
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket at 10:14 AM on April 12, 2005

There is no reason.
posted by tr33hggr at 12:42 PM on April 12, 2005

Let's say you have a computer problem and submit a question about it. Various people attempt to answer the question but are unsuccessful. Eventually you stumble upon a solution, or someone you know in the real world helps you out. Now you truly have the best solution to the problem but you can't mark it as the best solution because, umm, well for some reason.

agreed -- when I ask a question here, I don't give up researching it myself -- and so there's been a couple questions I have where *i've* ended up finding an answer that i've found to be useful/best. being unable to mark it as best, I've been satisfied without marking any best answers. I think it would improve the use of the ask.mefi archive, however, if one was able to mark the solution, even if it's their own, as best.

i also think the best answer feature should allow for unmarking too (can't remember what the consensus on that was).
posted by fishfucker at 12:51 PM on April 12, 2005

I thought you could mark your own as best. This guy did.
posted by iconomy at 1:42 PM on April 12, 2005

Or, you could e-mail someone else and ask them to post the information for you, then mark it as the best answer. Not pretty, but a potentially workable workaround.
posted by dg at 3:12 PM on April 12, 2005

iconomy's right! You *CAN* mark your own as best. matt doesn't provide a "mark as best answer" link for you to do so., however, you can create your own by copying a "mark as best" from the current thread and then replacing the message ID with one of your own.

obviously matt doesn't intend for this to happen (as he specifically left out the code that would create the link), so whether or not you should do it is perhaps another question.
posted by fishfucker at 3:20 PM on April 12, 2005

I marked one of my own answers as best myself a few weeks ago too. Hope I didn't break any of Da Rulez. I think it should definitely be an option, because as you said, sometimes the poster him/herself stumbles across the ultimate or best answer.
posted by iconomy at 3:43 PM on April 12, 2005

Fine, I'll make it so you can click them yourself. Anyone spots someone doing it for a stupid reason, flag it and I'll remove it.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 4:28 PM on April 12, 2005

Thank you fishfucker a much better example than my own. iconomy - I think you may well have broken an [unwritten] Da Rulez but omidius definitely broke a written one.
On preview: thanks mathowie, amateur screenprinters and yoga practioners in Ubud rejoice.
posted by tellurian at 4:54 PM on April 12, 2005

practitioners
posted by tellurian at 4:56 PM on April 12, 2005

I just realized, looking back, that that question was specifically about yoga in Ubud. I didn't even come close to answering it -- I took the question as much more general. Sorry, belatedly.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 6:00 PM on April 12, 2005

No worries, I invoked the stavrosthewonderchicken signal.
posted by tellurian at 6:37 PM on April 12, 2005