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Lately, I've been losing enthusiasm for this site, so I don't bother answering questions if I don't think I'm going to get any gratitude (in the form of an upvote, an accept, a "thank you", or some indication that my work has some value to someone other than me). So, before answering, I check to see if the questioner has asked questions before, and, if so, whether he or she has ever accepted any of the answers. For ingrates, I'm much less likely to provide an answer. I would guess that other people do this, too.

Would it be possible to provide an easier way to do this check? Perhaps there could be an easily visible "ingrate" or "hard to please" badge awarded to people who persistently refuse to upvote or accept answers, or something like that.

Another benefit is that questioners who see that they have received this badge might be prodded into taking some action.

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    $\begingroup$ Once upon a time, "accept rate" was displayed when anyone posted a question. But we scrapped that. If you search for it, you can probably find old discussions of the topic here on meta. $\endgroup$
    – Gerry Myerson
    Aug 31, 2014 at 6:40
  • $\begingroup$ @GerryMyerson -- Yes, now that you mention it, I remember the "accept rate" statistic. I was mildly irked when it went away. But I see that the decision was debated ad nauseam. I don't suppose the reasoning (or the conclusion) would be any different if we re-opened that discussion today. So I'm probably not going to get what I want. Shoganai. $\endgroup$
    – bubba
    Aug 31, 2014 at 7:02
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    $\begingroup$ BTW, a badge would not be very helpful, because checking whether a particular user has the badge involves clicking through to their profile and digging through the list of badges there. Also, an alternative remedy is to answer only the questions you enjoy answering for their own sake; then the user's behavior is mostly irrelevant. $\endgroup$
    – user147263
    Aug 31, 2014 at 20:22
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    $\begingroup$ @Thursday -- True. The "indicator" is only useful to me if it's immediately visible, without any digging. And you're also correct that there are many reasons to answer a question, and anticipated value/appreciation is only one of them. $\endgroup$
    – bubba
    Sep 1, 2014 at 6:07
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    $\begingroup$ @bubba Regarding this comment, I didn't read the old discussions, but the community has changed. Same subject, different time, perhaps a different result. I would support accept rate coming back. $\endgroup$
    – Git Gud
    Sep 1, 2014 at 18:21
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    $\begingroup$ @GitGud The decision to stop displaying accept rate was not made on this meta; it was a network-wide change. As such, developments on one site are unlikely to lead to its reversals. $\endgroup$
    – user147263
    Sep 1, 2014 at 19:25
  • $\begingroup$ @Thursday Thank you for the information. $\endgroup$
    – Git Gud
    Sep 1, 2014 at 21:48
  • $\begingroup$ Suggestion:Automated revival of questions with no accepted answer $\endgroup$
    – Vikram
    Sep 3, 2014 at 10:35
  • $\begingroup$ Frankly, sometimes I decline to accept an answer because I feel like I'm demonstrating that some answers have value over other legitimate replies and at my level I really appreciate the multiple points of view. I almost wish we couldn't accept answers; I often feel like more than one responder deserves it. $\endgroup$
    – user1833028
    Sep 5, 2014 at 14:48
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    $\begingroup$ @user1833028 Imagine another person will read your answered question later (which is sure to happen). Which answer do you want them to read first? Only one answer can be placed first, that's how total ordering works. $\endgroup$
    – user147263
    Sep 5, 2014 at 15:28
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    $\begingroup$ The accept rate is not a 100% correct indicator of the appreciation the asker shows to the answerers. When none of the answers provide the information I'm looking for, I don't accept any of them. $\endgroup$
    – user26486
    Sep 7, 2014 at 20:16
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    $\begingroup$ It's a bit rough to complain that people don't leave "thanks!" comments, when the comment box under answers explicitly says, `Avoid comments like "+1" or "thanks".' $\endgroup$
    – David Richerby
    Sep 10, 2014 at 21:14
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    $\begingroup$ @user1833028 -- if you "sometimes" decline to accept or upvote, and it's a conscious decision, then you don't fit my definition of "ingrate". $\endgroup$
    – bubba
    Sep 27, 2014 at 9:32
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    $\begingroup$ @Care Bare The site can select the order of answers at random for each viewing, as it does with equally scored answers, so every answer gets to go first. $\endgroup$
    – Conifold
    Oct 1, 2014 at 0:30

1 Answer 1

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$\begingroup$

As Gerry Myerson mentioned, there used to be a thing called "accept rate" that was shown under every user's profile. As a side effect, it resulted in hundreds of semi-witty comments concerning said rate (I know because I spent a couple hours last week deleting those). Eventually "accept rate" was removed. But you can take it back in two ways:

  1. There is a user script that shows accept rate.
  2. There is a bookmarklet that shows accept rate and more. Here is a sample of what you can see when pressing it on a question page:

bookmarklet

Technical details: accept rate will be shown as "undefined" for users with few questions. Also, upvote count is not shown for users unable to vote (low-rep or unregistered); instead the bookmarklet displays the reason:

bookmarklet2

(If there's a bug, let me know in a comment.)

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks. I read the debates about the "witticisms". Seems strange to me. I would have thought that there would be fewer nagging comments if the system did the nagging for us automatically. But, anyway, water under he bridge, or over the dam, or whatever. $\endgroup$
    – bubba
    Aug 31, 2014 at 7:12
  • $\begingroup$ @bubba The system does some automatic nagging with a pop-up message to low-rep users. However, there is a design flaw: the message is only shown when they upvote an answer -- which many don't do or can't do (not enough rep to upvote). $\endgroup$
    – user147263
    Aug 31, 2014 at 7:27
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    $\begingroup$ @Thursday How do you delete comments as a non-mod? $\endgroup$
    – apnorton
    Sep 1, 2014 at 3:23
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    $\begingroup$ @anorton Certain words and phrases allow the comment to be auto-nuked when flagged: it is deleted at once. One of them is "accept rate", which is what I cleaned out (except very few comments that also had some math in them). There are others, though it's rated R. $\endgroup$
    – user147263
    Sep 1, 2014 at 3:29
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    $\begingroup$ @Thursday: I should note that that list is not 100% accurate. I now face a pile of obsolete flags from someone (maybe you) which would've been auto-deleted according to that post. $\endgroup$
    – Willie Wong
    Sep 1, 2014 at 8:16
  • $\begingroup$ @WillieWong Something's fishy with "accept answer"; it does not always work, which tells me that further studies are needed. I'll try to carry them out on another site, though. $\endgroup$
    – user147263
    Sep 1, 2014 at 14:28

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