I've never made a suggestion on here before, but here it goes. I just upgraded to 3.4. I'm very happy with it and I think the "Best Answer" feature has a lot of potential. I think it could be improved, however, by allowing the best answer to shoot up to the first reply in a thread (in post #2's place) rather than above the original post. This would force newcomers to the thread to see the original post/question before seeing the reply. IMHO, it doesn't make sense to read the best answer to a question when you haven't read the question yet... This would eliminate the need to have a "Go to the Full Post" link since the entire post in shown right under the first post...and it would ensure that a quality reply was the first thing seen by people when they come into a thread.

Just a suggestion...I believe "Yahoo Answers" has a similar format and it's extremely helpful.

-Cris

Agreed.

I'd suggest Best Answer mimic this:

Right now it's a half-finished mess. It posts the entire "best answer" post at the very top of the page. It's the first thing a visitor or, even worse, forum member sees before they even get to see the question!

If it's a nice long detailed response it pushes everything way down the page. If your'e a board member, you open the thread and there taking up half the page is the "best answer". You haven't even seen the question which by the way is over 1,000 pixels of scrolling down the page. IMO this discourages anyone who might have a better answer from even reading any further. Who thought that was a good idea?

If you're a visitor/guest and you get hit with a huge best answer post first thing at the top of the page, you don't even know if the person asking the question, asked the exact question you're interested in the answer to. What quality assurance tester team member looked at that and thought, "yup, that looks great"?

My Point: The initial question is even more important than the "best answer" no matter whether you are an answer seeker or someone with answers. It's kind of a no-brainer that the question should come first. No?

Right now it's a half-finished mess. It posts the entire "best answer" post at the very top of the page

That look nice though i will like to suggest an additional option. If you can achieve on displaying the best answer inside first post on a truncated format , that would be the better.

Not possible via hook at this time. IPS has to change it.