28
votes
Accepted
Should we encourage users to wait 24 hours before accepting an answer?
Yes. Encouraging users to wait 24 hours before accepting an answer is good.
The Problems For Answerers
I am not primarily concerned about the effect on answerers, though I think those exist (fastest ...
- 175k
28
votes
What good are the Tenacious and Unsung Hero badges?
They're in our Q&A system for sites like Stack Overflow where it's much, much harder to get upvotes. SO for example has 65k Tenacious badges and 26k Unsung Hero badges. After so little engagement ...
- 36.3k
26
votes
Which answer should I accept if the rules are ambiguous on the matter?
For now, neither
It is completely okay not to accept any answer if you feel the issue is not clear. You are under no obligation to reward the highest voted answer either. The two systems have ...
- 61.3k
24
votes
Accepted
my accepted answer is factually incorrect--no recourse?
Flag as “other” and explain the issue in the custom flag area. Moderators have the ability to delete answers even when they've been accepted, and unless there's a good reason not to, such flags are ...
- 243k
23
votes
Can something be done when OP does not agree with an upvoted answer?
Nothing really needs to be done. How people vote and accept answers is entirely personal and beyond the control of anybody including diamond moderators. And as the old adage goes, you cannot make ...
- 36.3k
23
votes
What is our stance on "Unpinning the accepted answer from the top of the list of answers"?
Pinning keeps the focus on the exact question—especially playstyle
I commented on doppelgreener’s answer for unpinning with
I feel neutral-to-positive about this answer,
and that’s true—it’s a good ...
- 345k
21
votes
Should I accept an opinion-based answer if an objective one doesn't appear to be forthcoming?
Only accept answers that answer the question
The "mark as answer" option is yours to do as you wish. Therefore you can choose to use it on any answer you choose. There is no right or wrong ...
linksassinMod
- 30.6k
21
votes
Accepted
Is there a way to let someone else decide which answer to accept? How should accepting self-answers be handled?
This sounds like an ideal case for accepting your own answer. Go ahead.
To answer your questions:
Is there a way to pass the right to accept answers to another user or a group of users?
There is ...
- 36.3k
20
votes
Accepted
How to deal with OPs accepting answers they want to be right instead of ones that are right?
Unfortunately for the hapless souls who offer that "yeah this works" answer when it's wrong, the usual resolution communities use is to downvote that accepted (but wrong) answer more heavily than it ...
- 36.3k
20
votes
What is our stance on "Unpinning the accepted answer from the top of the list of answers"?
I think this would be a neutral-to-positive change for us.
The accepted answer exists to signal something specific: “this is the solution that I went with, that worked for me.” It originated on Stack ...
- 36.3k
18
votes
What is our stance on "Unpinning the accepted answer from the top of the list of answers"?
Yay math.
My purpose here is to provide some statistics to help you make a decision. I've got it started, if there are other metrics you want to see, leave a comment and I will run the numbers and ...
- 143k
16
votes
Too many good answers...now what?
Usually the accepted answer is to mark “this fixed my problem”. So, try your favourites out in practice, see what you find, and if any one answer is the one you go with that solves it, accept that one....
- 36.3k
16
votes
Accepted
Should I accept an answer to a homebrew-review question if I think I might be biased?
You are free to accept any answer that you like, even when it has 20 downvotes.
From What does it mean when an answer is "accepted"?
Accepting an answer is not meant to be a definitive and ...
- 19.4k
14
votes
Accepted
I've noticed that new users tend to accept questions within only a few hours; should we update the tour?
We can't actually edit that part of the tour just for this site, so this is a Stack Exchange dev thing.
But, also, no. The tour shouldn't be updated to say that. This isn't necessarily a “generally ...
- 36.3k
13
votes
Why was this bounty awarded this way?
It was specifically awarded that way. I placed and awarded the bounty.
I am going to preface this by saying I am not interested at all in debating any points about your (or any) answer, and am ...
- 175k
13
votes
What is our stance on "Unpinning the accepted answer from the top of the list of answers"?
Unpinning answers from the top of the list devalues answers and disempowers querents.
As it is, a querent's power to choose an answer has relatively little meaning. A selected answer moves to the top ...
- 8,642
13
votes
What is our stance on "Unpinning the accepted answer from the top of the list of answers"?
A reason to be against it: Visual Presentation
While usually the highest voted answer and the accepted answer have a high correlation, those cases where the accepted answer (which satisified the ...
- 142k
12
votes
How to resolve the checkmark sitting on answers now made incorrect/inaccurate by rule changes/updates?
The only way to move a checkmark is by the question-asker doing it. Not even mods can override which answer the asker found most useful.
There's no expectation set by SE that the checkmark will ...
- 243k
12
votes
How to deal with OPs accepting answers they want to be right instead of ones that are right?
What they are doing is well within the scope set out by the guidelines / rules.
Check out the tour if you haven't already and nip down to the section on answering:
Accepting doesn't mean it's the ...
- 1,064
11
votes
How do we deal with duplicate questions where a rule change has made an old answer obsolete?
Step 1: Bounty the question.
This is one of the purposes of the bounty system - to seek new answers to old questions for one reason or another. I will leave the bounty banner up for the full week, it ...
- 143k
10
votes
Why was this bounty awarded this way?
It was up to the Bounty creator
If they didn't choose an answer, then it defaults to the highest voted. If they did, then that was their choice.
There are times when selected bounties and answers are ...
- 124k
10
votes
Contradiction with accepted answer descriptions
It is the answer the OP considers the best, that helps them the most with their problem.
That does not mean it is the objectively best one. Feel free and vote for the answer(s) you like.
However, ...
- 175k
10
votes
Accepted
Overwhelming amount of edits needed in correct answer; what to do?
The guiding principles for good edits are “Does it improve the post?” and “Does it preserve the intended meaning?” Changing the original author's intended meaning, or not improving a post, are the ...
- 243k
9
votes
Why isn't it possible to delete an accepted answer?
For a fairly pragmatic reason: the Stack Exchange software has guards to prevent people from deleting material that's critical to a Q&A site's usefulness. That includes questions that have non-...
- 36.3k
8
votes
Too many good answers...now what?
Everything doppelgreener says in their answer is perfectly correct. Those are all good solutions. Here's one more:
Don't accept any. If you feel like accepting one of the four would lend too much ...
nitsua60Mod
- 101k
8
votes
How to reward an answer that isn't my accepted answer
Awarding a bounty of the “reward existing answer” variety to another answer you like is a fine idea. You should be able to do so without fiddling the accept checkmark — I don’t believe starting a ...
- 243k
7
votes
How to deal with OPs accepting answers they want to be right instead of ones that are right?
Yes, you should ignore it.
On this stack in particular, since it is about a gaming hobby and not about a medical question or computer codes that might end up in a public train, accepting that ...
- 142k
7
votes
Which answer should I accept if the rules are ambiguous on the matter?
If a question generates two highly upvoted answers, that themselves are mutually exclusive with each other (i.e. "yes, this is possible" vs "no, this is not possible"), then the safest conclusion you ...
- 52.3k
7
votes
Should we encourage users to wait 24 hours before accepting an answer?
Yes. Encouraging users to wait 24 hours before accepting an answer is good.
It is not policy
At least it's not anywhere that is easy to find nor readily apparent when posting a question.
It is a ...
- 33.3k
7
votes
Accepted
Is it a good idea to justify your choice between two good answers? Where?
Yes
Giving feedback for what you found useful is a generally good idea. This includes when multiple good answers appear on the same question.
However
This site doesn't provide good ways to do that ...
- 7,096
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible