It happens on every single question, when one answer out-points the rest.

Every question has a top answer it is the one that recieves the most points., that can change over time.

Oh I can tell you are from Y/A now : ) This system is much better! The question never dies. in 2 years you can come back and see all your new answers.

We have some problems at the moment with the Answerbag software, so it is not so easy to tell. As far as I can see, this is how it works: - if there is only one answer, it is called "First Answer" - if several answers have been rated, the answer with the most points is called, for instance, "Top Answer out of 7" (for 7 answers in total). However, if more than one answer has this amount of points, the most recent is called "Top Answer out of 7". - I could imagine that as long as no answer has been rated, the last given answer is called, for instance, "Answer 1 out of 3". You can probably see this often when you are answering recent questions, the answers of which still have not been rated. Interestingly, this is exactly the situation of this very question, as I am answering it: "Answer 1 out of 3 by Banned from Yahoo46 on Apr 13, 2009 at 6:48 pm" "Answer 2 out of 3 by Firebrand101 on Apr 13, 2009 at 1:18 pm" "Answer 3 out of 3 by Wide Awake Phoenix78 on Apr 13, 2009 at 11:20 am" This particular configuration arises (and stays) in the case of this question because even the asker did not rate a single answer for this question, either because they don't care about rating, or because they don't know how to rate, or because the Answerbag software makes rating at the moment quite difficult. About this difficulty to rate, look at that question of mine (I also give an answer): http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/1400336

whatevers best rated