You gain an additional 10 pts. if your answer is picked “Best Answer”

You lose points by asking questions, or by being reported for “adult content”. (Questions worth 5 pts. I’m not sure about being reported.)

Once you have asked a question, after four hours, you can choose an answer as best answer. This earns you back 3 pts.

A fan is someone who enjoys the questions you ask or the answers you give.

If you find someone’s Answer particularly helpful or informative, you can invite that person to become one of your Contacts. When you send the invitation, you become one of his Fans. Fans and Contacts are the inverse of each other.

You gain 2 points by answering a question, and 10 points for a Best Answer. If your Best Answer has been awarded any good thumbs, you get an extra point for each of those. You can also get 1 point for voting on an Unresolved Question (click on ‘Discover’ on the green bar at the top of the page). You lose 5 points for asking a question, but if you choose a Best Answer within 4 days, you get 3 points back for doing that. If you delete an Answer, you lose the 2 points you gained for that giving that Answer. All the points and levels are described here:

http://answers.yahoo.com/info/scoring_system