Why is it you never see BWS questions in the Best Answers feature on the front page?

Question

The closest I've ever seen was someone asking why alcohol doesn't freeze in the Science section.

Answer 1

One thought is, at least one out of every three questions I see someone must comment on how alcohol is bad, and alcohol kills yadda yadda yadda. Now, put a BWS question on the front page, be prepared to be overwhelmed by the anti-alcohol.

Second thought, is the wrong answer being the best answer. Numerous time the question in posed, "What's the best beer". And how many times does Coors, or Bud Light with lime end up being the "best answer"? So maybe they are filtering out the bad wrong one's. I mean how can you justify Bud Light being the best answer when you have others listing brews like Dark Lord, Founders KBS, Bells Expedition, Pliny Elder etc. I know it opinion, but good like justifying Bud Light as the best beer anywhere.

Answer 2

My belief is that if you want to get on the Best Answers page, then you have to have a Best Question, or at least a pretty good one, and the questions asked in this section are really, really bad most of the time.  Not to mention they are the same idiotic questions asked on a daily basis.  Look at the number of answers there are for the questions in the Best Answers section, it's usually pretty freaking high.  Most good questions in the BWS section usually only gets 5-10 answers at best.  In fact, the questions that seem to get the most answers are the "I'm underaged, should I drink?" or the "What's the best alcoholic beverage?" type questions.  Or sadly enough, the ones that are asked about subjects that have nothing to do with this section.  

Usually, the really good questions, get answered pretty accurately by one or two of the top answerers for this section, and no one else bothers to answer because a) they have no idea what the question is even about, or b) the first person to answer was absolutely right, and there is nothing more that needs to be said.  For example, if there is a question on some step in wine making, and Mitchell Winery answers it first, no reason for anyone else to answer it.  It may be the best answer to the best question ever, but it will never make the Best Answers page.  It's all about popularity.  

Answer 3

Because this section is chock full of underage kids and they're all:

- Trying to make their own wine

- Wondering how to hide swiping their dad's booze

- Demanding exactly how many shots of such-and-such liquor will get them drunk

- Worrying about how they'll pass a urine test

- Asking how much a common bottle of well liquor costs down the block.

So I'm guessing that the good questions get lost in the noise.

Answer 4

The Beer, Wine, and Spirits currently has three questions in the Best of Answers.

A question on floating liquors (which none of our TC's got an answer on):

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

A question on the difference in flavor of stirred or shaken Martini's (none of our TC's answered also):

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

And lastly, a question on paring wines with food (which again, none of us answered):

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

All three of these questions are rather old. There hasn't been any recent ones...which is why our little section of BWS and small community of TC's hasn't been fully recognized on Best of Answers.

The reason why we don't see more than a few BWS in Best of Answers is the fact there aren't a ton of good questions asked here.  We need to hop on answering more of the good ones and stay out of the traps.

There are lots of children, underage, and anti-alcohol people on Y!A as a whole.  BWS is just a small blip on the radar and some of the questions/answers posted in this section just aren't up to par some of the time.  Which is why those that are knowledgeable in alcohol, especially TC's, HAVE TO ANSWER valid questions.  We will get our time in the sun...eventually.

I am sure I can go through my answered/starred questions and pull out a few that Mayor, TE, Axel, jpiepenbrok, AleSmith, or Mitchell (just to name a few) have answered flawlessly.  Yet on each of those questions I am sure somewhere along the line a completely ignorant answer was posted...leaving us no chance of being featured.

Edit: Oh and just for fun,  I think the following link is the one that should be featured for our section, lol:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

But if we are being honest....the following link would be a great candidate for featurization (<is that even a word?), only because of the ridiculously awesome best answer:

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

Answer 5

i agree, lets all asks question about the sauce and see if that appears.

i mean everyone on YA, like that will ever happen!

Answer 6

I've wondered the same thing.

Obviously, a lot of the questions on here are of the 'Where can I get a fake ID,' 'How can I get drunk the fasted,' 'Who won on Tila Tequila' variety, but there is a fair amount of good, useful, interesting information that I'm sure would appeal to a larger audience than just those who frequent the BWS page.

I'm always hoping to see something from this section, about identifying and enjoying good beer or wine, or how to brew better beer at home, or what some of the health benefits of beer are, on the Best Of section. But so far, no luck.

It bothers me, too, that some of the stuff that actually does appear on the front page isn't too ground breaking, and a lot of time the answers aren't even that informative or well thought-out.

Maybe something from here will pop up one of these days. Keep the good questions and answers coming.

EDIT: I wonder if starring questions get them noticed more quickly to whoever gets to declare them best... maybe questions in this section don't get enough to make any noise.

Answer 7

There are a lot of children on here - that's the only thing I can think of. They don't wanna subject children to it.

Answer 8

The ones that I see on there are usually on sections that have a lot of people that hang own in them. The BWS is more of a nich group that usually involves teenagers that want to drink because they want to be cool, others that are interested in looking cool ordering drinks or want to recreate a memory of a "great" mixed drink they had, and then a small percentage of people that enjoy the taste of good alcohol and can tell the difference.