Tech consultant for Olympia, Lacey, And Tumwater

My Only Problem With Mahalo Is A Big One

Mahalo Answers

I Am A Fan Of The Site
So I have tried a few question and answer sites. The best of them seems to be Mahalo. Which is interesting since when I first checked out the site I found it to be pretty damn useless. They have done a ton of work on it and seem to have totally changed the entire focus of the place. Even though it is the best, it still has some room for improvement. Most of my problems with the site are about it being user friendly. There are many things that are still pretty confusing about the way it works.

This Is Why I Care About Mahalo Answers
For those that have never used the site, it there are two basic sections. One is a how to section where they give you a manual on things that there is no manual for. Like How To Get A Temp Job, How To Become A Teacher, How To Make Pumpkin Pie, Or How To Write A Blog Post (I should read that one someday). In my not so humble opinion this is the useless section of the site. Where the site really shines is Mahalo Answers. Now there are tons of question and answer sites, but what seems to put Mahalo in the lead is their payment system. This proves once again that the smallest amount of money involved gets rid of the trolls. Sure Yahoo answers can be funny as hell, but it’s just not that useful. No money involved. So the answers are way better quality on Mahalo Answers.

The problem is how to use the damn payment system!
I created a question HERE and put $5 up for the best answer. Right as the question expired I voted for what I thought was the best answer. Now the system keeps telling me to vote for the best answer. I have done every type of voting I can find. I even sent a message to the contact form. This thing is still bugging me to vote for the best answer. So the prize sits with no one getting it at all. This sucks because now users of the site will be less likely to give quality answers to my questions because they know they won’t get the prize. I tried to give the prize to the correct person, but the system will not let me. Either that or the button I need is hidden in some elaborate maze I can’t find my way through.

This one should get the prize
Now see the “vote” area in the upper right corner of the graphic below? I already voted and if I try to vote again it gives me an error message. Notice how it says this is voted as the best answer, but yet I am still getting told I haven’t picked the best answer. It also still shows the prize as available. Seems about as clear as mud to me. Mixed signals are bad.

So can someone take a look at my screenshots and tell me how the heck I give the prize to the best answer? This is the second question I’ve asked with a prize that can’t be awarded because of this faulty system.

Since I already voted for the answer, I figured I should also “Like” it. Whatever that does.

No matter what I did I got the alert below.

I love the idea of Mahalo, but unless they make this easier for someone to jump in and figure out right away it can only get so big. It has the potential to be the next massive thing on the web, but the learning curve is holding things back a bit I think. So did the $5 go to the person with the best answer or was there something I was missing? Hey @Jason Can you make your site more user friendly?