3
$\begingroup$

Today I ran into this question which has an upvoted answer and judging from the comment by the asker, it helped them and answered the question. Unfortunately the answer wasn't accepted and the user has left the site.

In my opinion it would be good it the answer could still be accepted such that the question is marked as such - there's an good answer to the question.

What do you think about this? Is there a policy in place to deal with this and would there even be a way for a moderator to manually accept the answer for the user who has left the site?

Edit. The same problem arises with this question.

$\endgroup$
0

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
4
$\begingroup$

If a question has an upvoted answer, then the question is answered. Acceptance of answers is still in the hands of the askers, and they won't necessarily oblige. There are many unaccepted answers in which the asker tells every answerer: "Thank you! This helped a lot!". How do you suppose we (as a community) subsequently determine which answers ought to be accepted?

Note that in your question, both questions with unaccepted answers have all upvoted answers. There is no compelling reason, unless you present one, why "all questions must have an accepted answer", or why every answer liked by an asker in a comment, but not accepted, ought to be accepted?

You can also post a "bounty" on such a question to help reward a good answer. That requires an investment of some of your rep, but if you are most interested in highlighting good answers, or the answers you personally would accept had you asked the question, then place a bounty on such a question.

If community members really like an answer to the sorts of questions you speak of, each of them can upvote the answer they find most fitting. So the community is not helpless in helping sort out the best of the answers, accepted or no.

$\endgroup$
4
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @<<There is no compelling reason, unless you present one, why "all questions must have an accepted answer">>. But in the related questions tab on the right, questions with accepted answer and questions without are clearly distinguished by colour. $\endgroup$
    – ViktorStein
    Commented Mar 7, 2020 at 19:29
  • $\begingroup$ SE has always, on all of its sites acknowledged and condoned that some questions will have accepted answers, and others will not. Ones with accepted answers are no better than those without. In chess, is white any better than black, or vice versa? In checkers, is red any better than black? $\endgroup$
    – amWhy
    Commented Mar 7, 2020 at 19:32
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ If you really want to argue that every question must have an accepted answer, if it's not the asker who accepts, then how do you propose which answer(s) get accepted, who determines that?, on what criteria, given the counterexample in which an OP clearly likes the majority of answers? Until you address these criteria and provide details of a proposal, I think it's ill-thought-out. $\endgroup$
    – amWhy
    Commented Mar 7, 2020 at 19:35
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ @amWhy If chess computers are reliable, White is in fact, a little better than Black. $\endgroup$
    – Rushabh Mehta
    Commented Mar 12, 2020 at 4:29

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .