How can I vote on answers I can’t verify?

Question

As an asker, it is my duty to upvote answers to my questions and especially, to accept them. And, until some point, I think I was doing this all right.

But then I bumped into a problem that I might not be able to verify an answer on the flight. Example: I posted a question on English SE, and got two answers that made sense to me, so I upvoted them. But then a third answer came and it wasn't obvious that it doesn't contradict the previous two. And what should I do, not being able to verify which answer is the correct one?

Unfortunately, surprisingly often, even on sites like Super User, simply checking that the answer "works for me" isn't really enough to prove its correctness. In the worst case scenario, to falsify an answer, I’d have to have enough knowledge to answer the question myself.

But, once I upvote an answer and leave this upvote for a few days, I can't undo it. So I can't even upvote an answer that apparently makes sense, in the hope I'll gain more knowledge in the future so that I can actually verify the answers and consequently, my upvotes.

I once accidentally managed to Google myself an answer that was highly upvoted, yet it contained code that was being rejected by the interpreter, and that was invalid as per the relevant documentation. This answer mislead me, and this is how I learned of its wrongness. I downvoted it, but the vote balance is still very favorable to the answer. All I want to do is to avoid unfortunate situations like this.

All of this led me to a strange situation that to be on a safe side, I usually refrain from voting on answers on my questions at all.

And this is bad.

So what’s the solution to this problem?

Answer 1

When you hover over the upvote button you'll notice that it doesn't say, "This answer is correct" or "This answer is unfalsifiable".

It says "This answer is useful".

Vote up answers you find useful. Vote down answers that are not useful. Recognize that you are voting according to your perspective and frame of reference and that's good - it's ok if you vote up something that you believe is useful that may not be perfect. It may not be useful for someone else, but if it was useful for you, then vote it up.

Answer 2

The privileges page comes to your rescue. It states:

When should I vote up?

Whenever you encounter a question, answer or comment that you feel is especially useful, vote it up!

So if you feel that the post is useful, vote it up. It does not say that first verify if it works and then upvote.

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Also, in the Help Center it is mentioned that:

Voting up a question or answer signals to the rest of the community that a post is interesting, well-researched, and useful

. . .

not to mention that upvotes are a great way to thank the author of a good post for the time and effort put into writing it!

I suggest upvote those answers that you think are well written, provide valuable knowledge, and may help the community. You don't have to agree with a post to vote it up.

Once you verify an answer, you may accept it to let the community know what worked for you. In case you have already voted a post but later find out that it is not up to the mark then leave a comment as you cannot take back your upvote (till it is edited). Future visitors may choose to down vote the post based on your comment or the OP may edit the post to fix it.