>>>Hi everybody,
>>>
>>>There are lots of cases, when several people reply in the same time interval with almost the same answer. In those cases, the first one has 3 stars, while others don't have a single star.
>>>
>>> Is it fair? Is it possible to divide stars to all participants?
>>>
>>> Or it would be a principle: who doesn't hurry, he (she) is late :)
>>
>>Never going to get 100% fair. You just have to live with the judgement of the originator to award the stars. In case of multiple correct answers in short period of time, a helpful star could be awarded to each reply. However, this defeats my wish of having 3 stars awarded for the correct answer for searching purposes.
>
>Yes, the more I think on it, the more it seems to be the problem without solution. Basically, we had several situations, when the time difference was ~20 sec., and the first reply got 3 stars, while second doesn't have a single star. Example: yesterday's thread about EditBox and SelStart. Larry Miller beat Doru by 18 sec. and got his stars. In this particular case it might be better to give both of them one star, because this topic was discussed already lots of times...
>
>Anyway, I guess, we never would have 100% fair assignation...

Funny, but "fairness" is not an issue with me at all when it comes to the points system, even now that there are rewards offered.

UT appears to consistently list replies from oldest (first in) to newest (last in). A problem submitter reads an answer - the first (oldest) in the list, probably tries it out to verify the solution, then awards the stars. S/he likely then either goes back to work on the interrupted project (now that they have a fix) or ignores the other answers since they already have what they need and move on to the next thread.
In either case I cannot blame the originator.

Now it wouldn't bother me if the other (correct) contributors used the "Force..." option to try to get stars for their answers. BUT I don't know how helpful that would be to me and other UTers who look to the stars as a fast-track to answers. It *could* be helpful if the reviewers put stars for answers that were a different technique but produced the same result, but to 'star' similar answers would take away the advantage I use for the star system. Sure, I can see how some who answered similarly but a bit later might be upset, but then maybe they're placing to much emphasis on the stars. [The Olympics do not give any medal to a runner who finishes 4 one-hundredths of a second behind the first 3 finishers]

It is hardly possible for me to get any stars because I log in infrequently and virtually all questions have an answer by the time I am in again. In those very few cases where a question was placed very near to the time that I enter UT it also usually has several answers before I get to it in that session. This, by the way, doesn't bother me in the least.

So my simple technique is to answer the question to myself and then see if the answer I came up with is the correct one. That works for me.

Cheers,

JimN