up vote 6 down vote favorite

I looked in the FAQs section and searched, but maybe I'm missing it.

I've noticed a lot of questions that have great answers that have been voted up 5-20 times for the answer, but the original questioner has never accepted an answer in the question.

Does this just remain this way or is there an automated process to eventually auto-select the answer with the most up votes?

Or does an accepted answer really not matter overall?

Added tag per request and checked community wiki.

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this should be tagged sffaq and be a community wiki entry – Server Horror Jun 11 '09 at 13:52
Duplicate - meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/21043/… – ChrisF Feb 19 '10 at 12:09
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migrated from meta.stackoverflow.com Jul 22 '10 at 18:07

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5 Answers

up vote 6 down vote

As folks have said, there's no process to auto-accept an answer to a "normal" question. There do exist, though, "above-normal" questions that have a reputation bounty offered on them. These questions DO get accepted automatically after 7 days if the asker does not accept an answer him/herself. The top-voted answer will receive the acceptance and thus the bounty.

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You mean that they do get accepted automatically. – Graeme Perrow Jun 11 '09 at 14:39
Ooh, yes. Thanks for the catch! Editing to correct that. – squillman Jun 11 '09 at 15:05
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Unfortunately, it seems that more of those bounty questions are the type that don't have a real "answer" but a "more or less accepted opinion"... but that's a rant for another day. – AnonJr Jun 11 '09 at 15:34
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up vote 4 down vote

It's up whoever posted the question to accept an answer. Answers are not automatically accepted regardless of how many up votes they get.

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up vote 3 down vote

An answer may be very popular and technically correct without actually answering the posters actual question - i.e. it is not helpful to the poster. This can happen for a variety of reasons but the poster is ultimately responsible for marking the answer as accepted.

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True, but the value of a question & answer after a few weeks is more for the community (and Google) than the original poster. – DLux Jun 11 '09 at 16:17
@DLux, the value to the community/google is not changed at all by having an answer marked as accepted. – Zoredache Jun 11 '09 at 17:59
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up vote 2 down vote

I'm not sure where we add feature requests, but it would be nice if moderators could accept an answer (or someone with a certain amount of reputation).

There are many cases were a question has been obviously answer, but the OP hasn't returned. Other times the highest voted answer is good enough for the community.

Another suggestion would be multiple accepted answers.

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Feature requests go to uservoice: serverfault.uservoice.com (the "feedback always welcome" link at the bottom of every page) – CoverosGene Jun 11 '09 at 14:47
Thanks! I never scrolled down that far to see it. – DLux Jun 11 '09 at 14:52
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up vote 1 down vote

I have two questions (one admittedly isn't really a question) that i don't feel have been satisfactorily answered and are now dormant. I would like to know if I can delete them or in some other way stop them from cluttering up the unanswered questions.

JR

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You may want to edit the question, or add comments to 'bump' your question up to active and get some fresh eyes on the question. In any case, the discussion there may help someone in the future. – Kara Marfia Jun 11 '09 at 16:50
This is what the bounty system is for. – Dennis Williamson Jun 11 '09 at 17:38
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