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I have observed in many instances that answers that were provided for the question do not accomplish but have an impact on the overall resolution. For such I propose we measure the impact of the answer in relation to the question whilst we still have the option of up/down vote in place.

I have seen answers in many instances which are the final solution, some prove to be worthwhile but can not be considered as the final, and lastly, some do not make any sense at all. So my question is, why sideline the worthwhile answers? Yes, up/down votes are there for such a purpose, but does it actually give the answerer some credit that he/she deserves from the person who asked?

Essentially, some level of measurement on how close the answer of an individual arrived at the solution.

Let me put it in this context: Let's say I asked a question and I got 3 answers. One answer gave 70% impact to the final answer, one didn't add up at all and eventually, there is another answer which got it all correct. So the answer which gave 70% impact will eventually get a single upvote from the individual who asked and a few more from others who found it useful.

My proposal is to let the user who asked the question assess the answers and gives points on a scale of 1 to 10 (or a different way) as an impact score instead of marking it as the final answer, in case the answer doesn't provide a final resolution of the question. Eventually, the impact score will be added to the answerer's points tally. Or we can have a separate item as "Impact Score".

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    if an answer doesn't make any sense, downvote it. If it really is nonsense i.e. a cat walked on the keyboard you can flag it as NAA. Generally better answers will attract more upvotes so this suggestion seems needlessly complicated.
    – Robert Longson
    Commented Nov 9, 2022 at 7:34
  • In other words, (effectively) fractional votes (resolution higher than 1.0)?
    – This_is_NOT_a_forum
    Commented Nov 9, 2022 at 12:10

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If you find that an answer has a positive impact, then I think it would be fair to say that you found it useful.

If you mouseover the upvote button next to an answer the advice is to use it when you find an answer to be useful.

On the other hand, if you find that an answer has a negative impact, then I think it would be fair to say that you found it not to be useful. The downvote tooltip says that's a good reason to use that tool.

I see no need for creating a complicated system to measure impact when the upvote/downvote system already does an excellent job of doing just that in a very simple way.

The asker of a question should already be using upvotes and downvotes on most, if not all, answers to their question so that answerers get feedback on how their answer has been received.

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