10

Time ago, as a stackoverflow user I was taught to accept the answers that I'd received when they were right.

I understood that it is really helpful when you are searching a question and also save time to other users that read the question trying answer them.

I think that SFSE moderators and users could encourage askers to accept answers when they are ok in the same way they are teaching users to ask properly.

I think that that is a good practice and a good way to improve SSE even more.

This is just an opinion.

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
8

If you read meta SO the consensus about "not ideal SE behavior" is due to people with low rep who either create an account just to ask a single question, or come here every 6-12 months and do not keep up on their questions and answers.

I am not sure what can be done about that: it is possible to put up guardrails to prevent or discourage bad behavior, but encouraging active participation is more difficult. Working diligently to have a quality SE site will attract users and encourage them to participate on a regular basis, but there will still be a bunch of users who do not invest much time in the site much to the detriment of those of us who appreciate the comments that add information, quality answers, and having an accepted answer.

6
  • 3
    Maybe by writing a comment on the question when it has a quite voted answer, asking to check if the answer is valid and recommending to accept it if it is.
    – Martin Borthiry
    Mar 13, 2014 at 9:19
  • I think having quality comments helps. I try to give advice on how to make the question or answer better when I do not feel comfortable editing it myself, as well as upvoting answers that I feel are correct. But I cannot force the asker to visit the site and accept an answer.
    – user6861
    Mar 13, 2014 at 15:01
  • 1
    I don't think there's any reliable way to force uninterested users to accept answers. When other users uprate an answer on a question with no accepted answers, that does help out the author. Is there somewhere we can see just questions with only unaccepted answers?
    – Jagular
    Mar 14, 2014 at 20:12
  • 1
    You can get a list of those questions by going to the "Unanswered" list. It doesn't actually mean zero answers but questions without an accepted answer. I know such questions only contribute to the stat for a given time but I forget where I read that. It's definitely a hard think to monitor and there's not much even moderators can do about it if people aren't active on the site to respond to comments.
    – Matt Lacey Mod
    Mar 17, 2014 at 10:33
  • I have been attempting to go back and prompt users, with some glimmer of hope they will return and provide the answer. Some of them actually come back and correct it, but it's certainly not scalable.
    – Kelly J Andrews
    Mar 27, 2014 at 21:07
  • 3
    This is probably the best answer... maybe you should accept it ;)
    – Caspar Harmer
    Apr 17, 2015 at 2:41

You must log in to answer this question.

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