20
The user who asked the question should be encouraged to accept the correct answer
If the user who asked the question accepts the correct answer then no notice on your incorrect answer is necessary. A moderator has already encouraged the asker to accept the correct answer in this case. Other users have done so as well.
However, the asker may still choose to ...
16
Stack Exchange's answer system ranks and rewards answers on two orthogonal axes. The first is marking an answer as Accepted, and the second is Question Score. These aren't necessarily aligned. The Accepted mark means the answer helped the original poster, and that's all it means. The second metric, total upvotes, is the one that you're aiming for, the way ...
14
As one who specializes in story ID questions, I'd find it very useful to have all of the correctly answered ID questions so marked. DVK mentioned three kinds of evidence for an "unequivocally correct answer". Let me mention a fourth and even more unequivocal kind: when the OP accepts the answer verbally in the form of a comment, without formally accepting it....
13
It is unfortunately not possible which is why we have upvotes so the community can make the correct answer more obvious. OPs will sometimes make mistakes and accept answers with a variety of different reasons, just upvote the one you think is most correct.
To quote someone great "Everybody makes mistakes, Everybody has those days"
12
Wait until the bounty ends
Bounty questions are special, in that they get more attention than normal questions. When you created the bounty you paid for that attention. Ending it early is a bit of a waste in that regard. Just let it ride until it ends. You might also get another answer. I would only end early if you got such a phenomenal answer that nothing ...
12
Unfortunately, because of the way accept and unaccept events are stored in the database, these questions cannot be perfectly answered. The problem is that "acceptance" is a special kind of vote, and unacceptance is equivalent to deleting that vote. Because deleted votes aren't accessible, there's no way to check acceptances other than the currently-accepted ...
11
I'd like to propose a different rule of thumb, based not on your question, but on when you first recieve an answer you feel is 'acceptable'.
If you see an answer to your question that satisfies you, I suggest waiting 2-3 days after this answer is posted before accepting it, to give others a chance to finish composing answers-in-progress.
Keeping in ...
9
On SFF, 43 (Valorum), followed by 16 (you), 14 (you), 13 (Valorum).
On Christmas Eve 2015, you not only hit the repcap but more than doubled that with your SIXTEEN accepted answers. This superhuman feat, which I observed myself at the time, was the best ever on this site until just a couple of days ago when Valorum absolutely slaughtered all competition by ...
9
Are you sure you can't unaccept the currently accepted answer?
According to main meta's canonical guidance:
You may change which answer is accepted, or simply un-accept the answer, at any time.
If this is wrong or outdated and you really can't unaccept, then (at a wild guess) maybe editing your question or the accepted answer would allow you to unaccept ...
8
For the same reason as you'd accept an answer on the main site. Basically, accept an answer if it solved your question.
If you post a support question, accept the answer that solves your problem by telling you how to do whatever it was you wanted to do.
If you post a feature-request or bug report, you might get an answer from a developer or moderator, ...
8
In addition to Loong's answer, you can also use the timeline view. This has the advantage of always showing the full date and time; the tooltip uses the same relative timestamp (e.g. "yesterday", "n days ago") used in most other places on the site, but you can't hover over a hover text (the way you can to get the more precise time in other cases).
The ...
7
I think a week is a pretty good period of time to wait before accepting answers. It gives people time to compose really excellent answers -- you never know when you'll get a really awesome answer to your question, after a few hours have passed. Meaning, don't feel compelled to accept an answer because it's the first one posted, or because it's okay (but ...
7
The accepted answer to this question was a self-acceptance, and self-accepted answers aren't sorted to the top.
This behavior is documented in a Stack Overflow blog post by Jeff Atwood (emphasis added):
Now, there are some special rules around owner-accepted answers, to prevent gaming:
Wait 48 hours. You must wait 2 days from the time you ...
7
No.
This has been asked before on the main meta but rejected. Accepting an answer
means that the author received an answer that worked for him or her personally
Only the question author knows which answer worked for him/her personally (if any) so only the author can determine acceptance.
In the absence of an accepted answer, votes determine which ...
5
No, they can't. Only the asker of a question can mark an answer as accepted.
There are a few questions on Meta Stack Exchange addressing this issue (example 1, example 2) and the response is always strongly against adding this feature.
(NB I'm a moderator on another site.)
5
The help centre has the following to say on accepting answers:
What should I do when someone answers my question?
Decide if the answer is helpful, and then...
Vote on it (if you have earned the appropriate voting privilege). Vote up answers that are helpful and well-researched, and vote down answers that are not. Other users will also vote on answers to ...
5
Enter user:me is:question hasaccepted:no answers:1 closed:no into the search box (or click the link).
This searches for
user:me // posts by you
is:question // questions
hasaccepted:no // no answer has been accepted yet
answers:1 // it has at least one answer
closed:no // not closed
And there you go.
5
I use a sort of sliding scale to determine when to accept an answer. Basically, the more complex the question, the longer I wait before accepting an answer.
In rare instances in which the question is exceedingly simple and easy to answer, I might accept an answer almost as soon as it is submitted. This doesn't happen very often.
Speaking very broadly, ...
4
We all know it is the answer.
And that's why this doesn't matter. The accepted answer denotes the answer the user found most helpful and nothing else; there's no reason for you to care :P. Use things like reading and votes to determine what the community's "accepted answer" is.
4
I would say that you should give it at least a few days. There's no rush to accept and you never know what another user is going to come up with, even if an earlier answer seems definitive.
I've personally posted answers that have been rapidly upvoted and accepted, only to read a later comment or see a subsequent answer that shows my answer to have been ...
3
Never mind, the system won't let you delete an accepted answer. The fact that you still see the "delete" button in this situation seems to be a bug. I tried it out just now: after clicking "delete" and "OK", I was told "you cannot delete this accepted answer." I guess you can do it if you first persuade the owner of the question to unaccept your answer.
2
As Gilles points out answers can only be accepted by the original author of the question (which is a good thing). However, if you think an answer deserves to be be accepted but the original asker does not, you can always offer a bounty for the respective question and award it to the answer you think is right. That's the closest you can get to "accepting" an ...
1
Acceptance is the OP's prerogative. Accepting a 'wrong' answer might attract more downvotes to it, but there are no real rules on what kind of answers you're allowed to accept. Do whatever you want.
Technically acceptance is a type of vote like any other, which should be based on the quality of the post itself rather than any more meta aspects. But you're ...
1
I am starting to think that a rule to "wait x number of days" before accepting is a little too simple and needs refining.
Two days ago I asked a pair of questions: the one mentioned in my question and a popular one about Star Wars. The activity and popularity of these two questions is very different: the first currently has less than 100 views and was only ...
1
A similar question has been asked before here on Meta, but I can't find it.
The sum of it was that the answers on SE sites are (up to a point) personal. I might ask a question that has 2 answers. One of them has 20 upvotes and the second one has only one upvote. If I (think that is best or for whatever reason) like the answer with the 1 upvote, I'm free to ...
1
You shouldn't delete your answer. Acceptance doesn't mean 'best answer'. It simply means the answer 'worked' for the OP.
This is why we have a voting system in the first place. Over time, the better answer(s) 'bubble up' to the top through accumulation of votes.
Deletion is generally reserved as a last resort for answers that either:
Do not answer the ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
