are we doing justice?

What is right for you may not be right for others. If that is how you think you should grant best response then so be it. You are entitled to that. As for me, I don't consider whether my respondent is newbie or not. What is important is the content of the response. If he deserves on the basis of the substance of his post then he gets it. And even if he gets it a hundred times or even more from the rest of my discussions I will still give it to him if he really deserves. It is not the status here that I look into. It's not even if you are a friend or not, it's the substance, the usefulness and the quality of the response that matter to me when granting the best response. Well if two or three have given same ideas in their response which I consider best, my way to solve this is to give to the first one among the three who answered my discussion. I don't really consider whether he is a newbie or not. This way... I am sure that I did not make the mistake of giving best response to the person who could have possibly copied the ideas of the first respondent. Although this is not always true, at least I am safely giving it to the first and the original. Well each one has his own way of deciding how to give his best response. We can't really influence each other here. What is best for you may not be best for the other users. This issue is subjective so I believe we just have to give each other the freedom to do our own judgmet.

I will give best response to the one who gives response that satisfies me. I don't see whether the person have already received any best responses or not. If all the responses are the same and if nothing is up to my expectation, I will give preferences to my friends. I don't think that its wrong. Ya I do understand that it will encouraging the newbies. But I hate to give best response if its just a single line from them.