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I saw a user post a question a few days back and saw their question history and noticed they have a low accept rate. It took me a while to realize that 2-3 posts of theirs have been answered by me (along with many others). I wanted to know whether it is (morally?) correct to ask him to accept answers that they like? I would be a little uncomfortable while asking that (especially when I am the one who has answered some of those questions).

Please, don't close the question as a duplicate of this as my question is fairly particular. Though its answer suggests that even the answerer may ask the OP to accept the answers. But, I wanted the question to reach a wider audience.

Can't we have a feature that when a question is asked for the first time by a user, then a small photo should pop up showing how to accept the answers and also warning that the question might be closed for not showing what you've tried, when the user clicks post question. I see that a lot of questions are closed for not providing enough details. It would solve both the problems.

Suppose you post a question for the first time. A screen appears (like the one that appears when you click flag). It tells about downvoting, upvoting and accepting and after clicking "I understood" (maybe?), a fairly simple question (say, "What is 2+2?") is shown as an example and asks the user to accept and upvote. That would also test that the user, actually, was reading the stuff and not just clicking "next" as we (don't tell me I'm the only one) usually do while installing a software.

Maybe the same argument has been put forth earlier too. I am sorry if it is so.

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    $\begingroup$ Related $\endgroup$
    – Aditya Hase
    Commented Dec 15, 2014 at 7:18
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    $\begingroup$ @Integrator: I have read the post earlier too. I'm not okay with the users who never ever accept answers. Moreover, some of them don't even know about the feature. $\endgroup$
    – Swapnil Tripathi
    Commented Dec 15, 2014 at 7:29
  • $\begingroup$ The tour is somewhat similar to what you envision. $\endgroup$
    – user147263
    Commented Dec 15, 2014 at 7:54
  • $\begingroup$ @Behaviour: What if a feature can be added so that as soon as we click "post question", we are directed to that page and only after giving a test is your question posted. I remember, I read the tour page a month or so after I joined (when it had become of no use to me). Edit: 5 months later. $\endgroup$
    – Swapnil Tripathi
    Commented Dec 15, 2014 at 7:58
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    $\begingroup$ As usually, I will add a link to the comment template about accepting answers. $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Commented Dec 15, 2014 at 8:50
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    $\begingroup$ The 15 reputation points are not the end of the world... Not accepting any answer is kinda rude, but there isn't much you can do apart from going to their home and threatening them if they don't click the accept button. $\endgroup$
    – Najib Idrissi
    Commented Dec 15, 2014 at 9:57
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    $\begingroup$ The popup idea sounds pretty good, actually. It might be even better to show it when the user first sees an answer to their question. (Of course, the popup should then also explicitly say that they may want to wait a while for more answers before accepting the best one.) $\endgroup$
    – Ilmari Karonen
    Commented Dec 15, 2014 at 11:06
  • $\begingroup$ @Najib I don't crave for more reputation and though the post mentions that I have answered their questions but it doesn't mean that the problem I'm having is the 15 rep points that I don't get. I am worried about the "unanswered?" list. It should not increase exponentially as it usually does. We need a limiting technique, don't we? $\endgroup$
    – Swapnil Tripathi
    Commented Dec 15, 2014 at 12:12
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    $\begingroup$ Questions with an upvoted answer do not appear in the "unanswered" list. $\endgroup$
    – Najib Idrissi
    Commented Dec 15, 2014 at 12:13
  • $\begingroup$ The unanswered clause was written in between the inverted commas as it has not to be taken literally. Here I mean the questions with no accepted answers. If I'd get a choice between two questions, one with and another without accepted answers, I'd probably go for the accepred one (though it may not contain the thing I'm looking for, and the other does) $\endgroup$
    – Swapnil Tripathi
    Commented Dec 15, 2014 at 12:18
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    $\begingroup$ I would say it is not unacceptable but also that it is mostly futile. $\endgroup$
    – rschwieb
    Commented Dec 15, 2014 at 15:54

1 Answer 1

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In the past, the SE network has had issues with some people excessively bugging others about what they perceived as an insufficient accept rate. (Those links are all from just a single quick search on meta.SE.) This eventually got to the point where, to make it stop, the accept rate was removed from user profiles, and comments mentioning "accept rate" are now automatically deleted as soon as anyone flags them.

Because of this history, people nowadays tend to be rather cautious about making such comments, which is perhaps just as well — nagging new users with "WHY U NO ACCEPT MY ANSWER??!?" is not really very welcoming.

That said, if you honestly believe that a new user may be unaware of how and why to accept an answer (e.g. if you see them posting a "thanks, this solved the problem" comment on an answer, but not marking it as accepted), it's absolutely reasonable to politely mention this possibility to them.

Martin Sleziak has already linked to one template for such comments, but since variety is good, here's a generic example of what I tend to write in such situations:

Glad to be of assistance! Since the problem seems to be solved, you might want to mark one of the answers as accepted by clicking the check mark (✓) icon next to the answer on the left. Doing so will mark the question as answered, and will also award both you and the author of the answer a few reputation points. Once you gain enough rep (15 points is enough), you can also vote up any answers you find helpful.

(Source for copy-pasting:)

Glad to be of assistance! Since the problem seems to be solved, you might want to [mark one of the answers as accepted](https://math.stackexchange.com/help/someone-answers) by clicking the check mark (✓) icon next to the answer on the left. Doing so will mark the question as answered, and will also award both you and the author of the answer a few reputation points. Once you gain enough rep (15 points is enough), you can also vote up any answers you find helpful.

Of course, you should always tailor any such comments to fit the specific situation — comment templates are useful, but unthinking use of boilerplate comments is not.

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    $\begingroup$ +1. Having raised this question, you know, I'll surely accept an answer. :P $\endgroup$
    – Swapnil Tripathi
    Commented Dec 15, 2014 at 15:31
  • $\begingroup$ You may want to add this template to the comment template thread in the relevant answer. $\endgroup$
    – AlexR
    Commented Dec 21, 2014 at 20:37

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