Hi Askpedia!
Its a good thought.
I do have a thought process for this situation.

First take the case as of now that people giving an answer to a question are not more and therefore who does 'Thumbs Up' are also less.
So, it may happen sometimes or even most of the times as u have written "game the system".If we receive many 'Thumbs up' for a Unselected Best Answer...then there can be a fair deal.

Now how to have more user participation for this 'Thumbs Up'?
Its Rewards again. For every user who votes or complements an answer
(also here it should be noted that only those questions be considered here in this case where the asker hasn't selected a Best Answer otherwise users will start giving 'Thumbs Up' to every question to get benefited)
should be given a reward
( not in monetary terms like you give in $$$, but i suggest some other ways like
1) Points and later on these points like 100 points means 1$ or any thing that you people later decide on
2) Giving the users some other benefits like increase ratings and something new like of this sort or active user participation rating
)

also asking from the users when he/she gives 'Thumbs Up' the reason why he/she gave the question a 'Thumbs Up' and we can do all this by making a new section where all such questions without Best Answers will be shown (as you show open questions etc.) to attract more users to give 'Thumbs Up' .


Second thing that can be given a thought is that such questions be given 'Thumbs Up' as it is being given now and with it if a question hasn't a Best Answer selected then all the Users who have given the answers to this particular question now votes ('Thumbs Up') for other users answers (other then their own answers) ,which answer among the rest they like the most and as these user (who have given answers are interested in such a question) they will do participate in 'Thumbs Up' and now the user who gets maximum votes must be given a weight age along with some weight age to general 'Thumbs Up' by other users.

In this case after I have thought a lot, a problem can arise and the problem is that the Users (who have given answers are interested in such a question)
doesn't participate in this 'Thumbs Up' and the solution can be that either their rating should be decreased or their answer shouldn't be counted for Best Answer. Anything like this can be done.

In continuation what I said of weight age...some weight age should be given to the user's (votes) who are more active users (a new parameter- users who comes online to the site often) the reason behind is that they are more active which means that most of them participates actively more here, so they will give true ratings. It will be a bit complex but the coding of the site can do it.

I have two possible fixes to your problem. First would be to allopw the VOTING public a max. number of votes on a question. say... 3. Then they could not muck up the results.I do not have a lick of knowledge on these processes, but I am sure that you do. Second, I would only let the people who submit answers to questions have a vote on any question. How can I vote on an answers merit or worth without having any idea what i am talking about anyhow?!?.

For auto select:
Keep the thumbs up factor but add more factors like:
1) Number of links provided
2) If answer provided a source
3) Legnth of answer
And whatever factors Askpedia can add that pertains to the definition of a good answer.
Like a points system, each thumbs up is a point, each link is a point, source provided is a point, every so many words is a point. Then the computer gives best answer to the one with the most points.If a tie comes up still then, then first answerer wins.

The other option is people choose, post them and let people vote. To promote voting provide some kind of reward like a dollar every so many votes. Or not, and see how it goes without a reward. If you answered the question you cannot vote on that question.

In the past, I've wondered how much time Askpedia has and why Askpedia doesn't just choose.How much trouble it would be for you to choose.

Have a Askpedia moderator or staff select best answer when asker does not.

At the very least limit the number of thumbs up any member can give per day to 5 or less and no more than 20 per month or post Who gave the Thumbs Up

The Thumbs Up is being ABUSED on AP and you know it as well as I do, read my question on cryptic message and comment on it AP.

As it stands right now if JohnDoe does not want JaneWhite to get more best answers than himself, all JohnDoe has to do is click on the Thumbs up on any answer that came after JaneWhite posted hers. And AP will say there is no abuse!!!

Source: Myself, Been there and had that done to me! Cold hard facts!!

Here is part of an email I received from Yong Su Kim | CEO and Founder | Askpedia, Inc.

"We do realize that there's always room for improvement and we will do
our best to address potential loopholes that allow people to subvert
the
spirit of the Askpedia community. Please understand that we're doing
our
best to improve the community and because there are a lot of things we
want to achieve, some things may take longer. It doesn't mean that
we're
not doing anything about it. Posting a question and soliciting feedback

was just one visible step our of many steps that we have already taken
and we'll do our best to make visible improvements in the near future."

My comments:
I say we all give Mr. Yong Su Kim a chance, he is trying to improve AP for the better.

Another thing AP needs to prohibit is when one person answers a question and another person gives him/her a thumbs ups and the two or more people see saw back in forth--in other words "I'll scratch your back if you scratch mine" to help out winning the awards. I was asked about 3 weeks ago to join in on this, I turned it down.

Put the thumbs up in the hands of the asker only to stop what is going on, this is the second way people can cheat on here and as good ole Barney Fife(sp) said "Nip it in the bud"

I can see how this is a dilemma. I've been on Askpedia on and off over the past few months and it's really come a long way. Back in the beginning, I don't think there were such problems.

Personally, I think you should keep the current compliment setting. I remember the thumbs down feature and that discouraged people from answering question. Nobody likes being told that their answer is dumb!

I can see how you could game the system by creating multiple user accounts. But that would take a lot of time and effort which most people wouldn't do, unless they really had a lot of time on their hands.

My concern is that the issues are being raised by a small group of people who seem to have some grievances. I don't think you should take drastic action. You might be throwing the baby out with bath water!

I've been participating only a short time in the activities of this intriguing website, and, at first I thought that "someones" were monitoring all of the questions and their answers and making judgements about what should be the RIGHT answer, whether or not the asker chose one as BEST. But then, I soon realized how monstrous a task that would be. And now, on thinking about it more seriously, I believe that for Askpysk to be able to be completely fair and CORRECT in determining a best and CORRECT answer to any particular question would require a very costly automatic scanning and evaluating library of computer/printer equipment having almost unlimited worldly knowledge -- with a touch of human insight. First off, I believe sincerely that all questions that are obviously "dumb" or pointless or so poorly presented as to be unintelligeble should be immediately DISCARDED, and a "nice" note posted to the submitter saying, in effect, "thanks, but no thanks!"

The answer to the collusion problem is to record the name publicly like a comment when any except the asker gives a thumbs up. For the most part, this is my policy. (except for site failure, browser failure and phone failure, etc, .) I give the reason I thought it was good and add "and a compliment." I believe answerers like this. I hope it encourages them. At least it would be easy to tell if something was going on. The only collusion I have noticed was by nationality and that seems to have stopped.
I think I have finished second in the other categories, didn't win anything and I do not think I was cheated.
Off the subject, I wish the best answer emails had the asker as well as the question included.
Over time the isolated incidents where the wrong answer gets chosen even out. I take a long view of this that others may not.
I was trolled unmercifully when I first started, and again recently. Would be nice to know who.
If a new asker has an answer that is not as good as the one I might give, I ask them to add a detail to show continuing interest. My dial-up lets answers slip in, but this often helps maintain a high percentage.
I think the answers have improved recently.
Selecting a best answer can be a hard job.
Here is my suggestion. Shorten or eliminate the period where the asker can change their mind about the best answer. The turn around is a bit long anyway.
If no answer is selected and there is more that one, Open it to the community to select and offer points for selecting. No money, just points. Worthless points like getting gold stars from your elementary teacher. Post the points on the leader board. I promise there will be competition for them. I think we will not have much improvement in the answers selected, but it might be fun. As soon as a vote is cast, the question ends that day. You might require a person ask a number of questions or have answers before being permitted to vote. And you might have to limit the number of votes per day.
Lots of ways to tweak this.

How about having the person submitiing the question an option on the QUESTION form.

ie:

BEST ANSWER: How would you like your BEST ANSWERS choosen:
__ I will pick
__ Most votes
__ etc....

I, myself, have few sentiments regarding how the best answer was being chosen automatically. I don't think who came first PER SE in case of a tie should be the one. This is one reason that discourages me to answer whenever someone has already answered the question. We know for the fact that not all questions are being visited by members. Thus, no vote will be casted, which will make the first answerer to be the best despite there are better answers given after him/her. Knowledge sharing is being compromised.

Assume further that a passerby visited this site, browse for an answer to his/her question in the "Discover Knowledge" tab. After finding a resolved question similar to his query, left in disappointment because the best answer in his question is 256 km/hr. (no explanation given nor there was a link provided. It was chosen the best because he's the first answerer and not a single vote was casted.) Chances are, he will never visit again.

Here's my opinion.

1. Of course, the asker's selection will be the best. (that's a given)

2. In case the asker was not able to make a selection after a given time, let say 7 days, the best answer will be given to the one with the highest votes from the members only if receives more than 3 votes (or whatever you think is appropriate).

3. Until the sufficient vote is not yet being reached, it should be classified as "Undecided/Unresolved" which is only open for voting. This means that the website should re-program (that's the sad part about this).

4. To ensure minimal undecided/unresolved questions, members should be encouraged to vote by giving incentive in your own discretion.

I hope this helps ;)

the question asker should mostly decide what the best answer is, because it is he/she that is asking it. the question asker should have to chose between two winners, those two winners are choses by the amount of thumb ups they get. the two with the highest rating are who the question asker has to chose between.