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A routine question with answers, but no accepted answer, gets bumped by the Community bot. Checking the OP's page reveals that the user is likely gone for good.

Barring intervention from the OP, will this question be bumped for all eternity?

If so, is there something the moderators can do to prevent this?

In either case, is it appropriate to flag such questions?

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    $\begingroup$ It gets bumped not because there are no accepted answers, but because there are no upvoted answers. The idea, I believe, is that you should either upvote one of them (then it won't be bumped anymore) or write a good-enough answer to merit someone else upvoting it. It's the SE way of cycling unanswereds back into the mix. Oh, but to answer your question directly, mods can't prevent this and they shouldn't be flagged. $\endgroup$
    – davidlowryduda Mod
    Commented Aug 15, 2012 at 4:17
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    $\begingroup$ @mixedmath Better write that as an answer so I can upvote it then. :) $\endgroup$
    – Austin Mohr
    Commented Aug 15, 2012 at 4:18
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    $\begingroup$ Related: meta.math.stackexchange.com/questions/4804/… I allocate some of my daily voting quota to old answers that are good enough to be upvoted but never have been. There are, of course, also answers that should be left without votes because they miss the point or are more of a comment. $\endgroup$
    – user31373
    Commented Aug 15, 2012 at 5:57
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    $\begingroup$ If anything, they're ripe opportunities to acquire "Revival" and/or "Necromancer" badges... :) $\endgroup$
    – J. M. ain't a mathematician
    Commented Aug 15, 2012 at 8:23

2 Answers 2

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It gets bumped not because there are no accepted answers, but because there are no upvoted answers. The idea, I believe, is that you should either upvote one of them (then it won't be bumped anymore) or write a good-enough answer to merit someone else upvoting it. It's the SE way of cycling unanswereds back into the mix.

Oh, but to answer your question directly, mods can't prevent this and they shouldn't be flagged.

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    $\begingroup$ It seems that acceptance also matters: I don't remember seeing a question with a 0-vote accepted answer being bumped, and there are quite a few. $\endgroup$
    – user31373
    Commented Aug 15, 2012 at 13:41
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    $\begingroup$ @Leonid, yes, it's "either-or". If a question has an answer that is either accepted or upvoted, then the bot can't touch it for bumping anymore. $\endgroup$
    – J. M. ain't a mathematician
    Commented Aug 15, 2012 at 15:35
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    $\begingroup$ blog.stackoverflow.com/2008/09/ok-now-define-answered $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Commented Aug 15, 2012 at 16:33
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Alternatively: If the reason the question has no (accepted or upvoted) answers is that it is just not a very good question, you could downvote the question itself. As I recall, once it reaches a negative score, it will stop being recycled. (Though I can't find an official source for this at present.) If it is really unsuitable and you have sufficient rep, you can also vote to close; closed questions are not recycled either.

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