A new insight into WHY dumb answers keep getting chosen

For a while now I'd been wondering why people tend to vote for inane, poorly thought out and generally dumb replies when choosing the "Best Answer." The following question and associated "Best Answer" are very telling:
Question:

Do most people on yahoo answers think if they give a LONG answer they will automatically recieve(sic) "best answer"
just wondering....sometimes it seems like peeps ramble and ramble and ramble... :)

does anyone else notice this?

Additional Details

some of you dont(sic) need to "defend" yourselfs(sic) i'm(sic) just asking a general opinion...not saying whether it's right or wrong!

Best Answer, Chosen by Asker:

no, short answers are usually the best for most questions because most questions are just basic opinions, occasionally there will be a question which will need lots of detail but they are quite rare.

I hate it when people just write and write for no apparant(sic) reason, they could get their point across within a line but they just write and write and write and write and write and write and you wonder if they will ever stop.

Remember kids, a well thought out, well researched answer will be ignored if it's "too long." This is the Internet age after all. If reading something takes longer than listening to a TV News sound byte, then of COURSE you MUST be a long winded jerk who just likes to hear themselves talk!

In other words: Yahoo Answers is, as far as the asker and answerer above are concerned, an exclusive club for people with very, very short attention spans.

These guys are kidding, right?

Sometimes you see an exchange that just HAS to be a joke. Yes, Yahoo Answers has content that can be explained by mind numbing levels of stupidity, but other questions and their associated replies can only be explained as a gag or by the heavy use of drugs, possibly both.

This question and its replies fit that criteria. This has GOT to be someone joking around:

Question:

Im writing a book,,,,where can i buy some NEW words???????
i need NEW WORDS.no old words.

Best Answer:

It is posseble (sic) by experience.

The asker's comment on the "Best Answer:" thanks i made a word up >>> "plippyssponge"

The only other answer posted:

Internet is the best source to get new words.Go ahead.All the best.

The question itself was asked at around 7:30 Am EST and the "Best Answer" was chosen within a few minutes. This leads me to suspect the whole thing was done by a group of friends or one person with three logins.

Account 005

A while back I posted some theories about WHY my accounts were being banned on Yahoo Answers. I've been using Account 004 to post test some of these theories. So far the account has survived. One of my theories was that someone was reading this Blog and either reporting my answers and questions, or was a Yahoo employee suspending my accounts when they showed up on this blog. In order to test for this scenario, I've kept all my posts about Account 004 as drafts and won't actually publish them until the account is suspended.

The fact that account 004 has survived so long tells me that I'm getting the hang of writing the kind of mindless answers that Yahoo likes to leave on the site.

The problem is, I want to have some posts that go live NOW damn it! In order to do this, I'm going to create Account 005. I'll post the kind of vapid, mindless replies that represent what appears to be the average Yahoo Answer and post them here.

If the account is suspended, then I'll know for certain that this Blog is a factor in an account being suspended. If it's not suspended then I'll have some strong evidence that Yahoo probably isn't banning my accounts because of this Blog.

Meet Corky Pad, Yahoo username: padcorky

Corky Pad has already answered her first question:

What is your favorite teams biggest weakness?

One thing they need to work on or someone they need to get rid of, anything at all that you would consider to be their biggest weakness.

Corky's reply:

They do really well the first half of the season, but tend to choke under pressure once expectations start to build of a good season.

I'll freely admit the answer is so vague that it could apply to several teams in a variety of sports. Twins fans will know exactly what I mean.

Let's see if Corky can still post to Yahoo Answers in the morning.

Everyone's favorite topic: Sex

The Question:

my bf wants to have a threesome?

hi. my bf really wants to have a threesome. he is 27 and i am 21. he said we will do it just for fun and he said i dont have to worry about it because he loves me so much and that he wont ever leave me. i love him so much and i know that he will be very happy if i will say "yes" and do it. but the problem is, i am very sensitive person and i cant dare to see another girl touching my man and i cant dare to see my man touching another girl. what should i do?

My Answer:

Tell him you think it's a great Idea and you've always wanted to get it on with two guys. Act really surprised when he says he wanted the third person to be a girl. Explain that you aren't Bi and that as a result the whole idea of adding a woman just doesn't appeal.

If any of the answers I've posted today get me kicked, it will be this one. This is my last answer for Account 004 for a few days as I don;t want to have TOO much confusion about which answer gets me kicked when it finally happens.

Still trying to be helpful

I don't know WHY I keep putting effort into these posts.

The Question:

Should I pay someone to get traffic to my online business?

I have a very small business on the internet selling hand-drawn portraits. I only need about 2 or 3 orders a day, which I calculate would require about 8,000 unique visitors per week to my site. Some companies offer to send traffic to your site for as little as 50 dollars. I have very little money to spend on advertising, and I don't know if it would be possible to get thousands of hits without paying for advertising or professional internet marketers. What would you do in this situation?

My Answer:

Most of those companies are shills who will gladly take your money and drive a slew of useless traffic at your site. You may get that 8,000 visits a day, but you won't have the conversion rates you need to get the orders you want.

Worse yet, if one of the main search engines identifies the site of that company as selling that traffic as a "Link farm" their traffic will drop due to reduced search result ranking.

Here are some better options:

Watermark any images you put online so it's harder for people to steal them and claim they're their own.

Create or participate in a Yahoo Group about the kind of art you do. Use your site URL in your profile and use an @yourdomain e-mail address for the account.

Place ads in the appropriate areas of free sites like craigslist.

Sign up for a Google Analytics account and use the tools it offers to examine your site and see what you can do to optimize your site.

Create an XML site map and link to it appropriately from your robots.txt

Read the guidelines from the big search engines like Yahoo, Google and MSN to see how you can build the site to better fit the kind of site they WANT to index. This is a good idea, because those guidelines are a blueprint for techniques that search engines SUPPORT.

Buy some Google Adwords. If you've already optimized the site and you pick good adwords, you'll see a higher conversion rate than two to three orders out of 8,000 visitors

Offer Valentine's Day discounts under the condition the orders are placed before a certain date.

Post pages from your site to places like Digg and del.icio.us

Advertise Burlesque portraits as a gift for a woman to give her man.

Do a few "Traffic Draw" portraits. Foe example, do a burlesque of Deanna Trio from Star Trek and post it to Digg.com. Depict a sports hero in a Romanesque or Gladiatorial pose and post it to a forum for fans of the sports star's team.

Design an attractive t-shirt that advertises your site, get it printed and wear it around town.

If you drive, put the URL on a bumper sticker and slap it on your car.

You're on a budget, there's no reason to cough up cash when there are so many free or low cost advertising options out there.

KITT's Rims

Does anyone know which rims or what brand are on the new Knight Rider Mustang?

I decided to just make stuff up for this one.

They aren't rims, they're Foose Wheels, designed by Chip Foose. He was a BIG Knight Rider fan when the show was on the air. He's even made a few references to KITT on episodes of "Overhaulin'"

Why are birds always at the centre of a c0ck fight?

Why are birds always at the centre of a c0ck fight?

Because the phrase refers to a fight between two male chickens. AKA "Roosters" or "C0cks"

If the fight was between something other than two male chickens, it would be called something other than a C0ck Fight.