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This isn't just related to this forum specifically but in general related to all Q&A forums. A lot of questions often are not marked as 'Solved' because the person who asked the question doesn't really bother doing so - especially a common practice among newbie users who take to forums to get specific queries answered and don't look back.

Do the moderators on Salesforce StackExchange mark questions as solved in case there are legitimate answers and the person asking the questions doesn't do so? This is somewhat related but I believe there's no harm in giving credibility for answers where due.

This isn't about statistics but more about helping out others with answers which may already be there but haven't received blessings from whoever asked the questions (and the moderators).

Food for thought perhaps?

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  • Good question - I've found myself hunting through the "Unanswered" section of questions lately and while I find some questions devoid of answers, I find a solid amount with really good answers that are just not marked yet.
    – Michael Welburn
    Commented Jan 1, 2014 at 3:24

2 Answers 2

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You're talking about two separate issues, so let's make sure we're talking about the same thing:

The 'Accepted Answer' Checkmark

The author of a questions has the ability to select an answer as the "accepted answer." That's the green checkmark that pins the question to the top of the list. That is simply a social convention that indicates which answer the author found most helpful. This feature is completely optional and can only be performed by the original author.

The accepted answer is not meant to indicate that the question has now been "answered" (in terms of the "percent answered" stats), nor is it meant to indicate the problem is "solved" perfectly. Questions are never closed in this manner because the answers should continually be updated and improved for the benefit of future users looking for that information.

Unanswered Question Statistics

Questions are answered by the community. And you reward good answers with up-votes. Questions that have at least one up-voted answer is considered "answered" in terms of statistics and getting the question off of the unanswered tab on the front page.

Moderators have no special role in either of these processes, except for their part as a normal community participant.

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I'm no moderator, and thus can't answer this 100% reliably: I don't think accepting answers is a moderator capability.

The community mechanism will bump unaccepted questions up, I think the only thing we(=everyone) can do is post comments reminding the OP that no answer has been accepted, which in many cases probably will go unnoticed until the same OP returns for another question.

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    This is true, mods CAN'T accept answers. This is an issue with many Q&A sites, the older the site, usually, the ratio is weakening for answered. A mod can delete a q, but that's not something that is done in order to fix the Q/A ratio.
    – Saariko Mod
    Commented Dec 30, 2013 at 12:59
  • Sdry - Thanks for the clarification. I am not sure reminding OP is a feasible solution though
    – Gaurav Kheterpal
    Commented Dec 30, 2013 at 16:37
  • Saariko - I understand. In no way, do I mean that moderators should delete stale questions to bump up the Q/A ratio
    – Gaurav Kheterpal
    Commented Dec 30, 2013 at 16:38

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