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Inspired by this question randomly popping up on the front page, although it hasn't been edited and no new answers of comments have been posted for more than three years. I guess this is due to some automated system bumping up unanswered questions in the hope they get looked at and answered.

Anyway, the question is five years old, has two answers but no upvotes and no accepted answer, and whatever the original problem was, it probably is no longer; even the user who originally posted the question has left ServerFault; also, the question doesn't seem to be relevant anymore after all this time (at least as far as I can tell by my very little knowledge of Lotus Domino and its versions).

I'd like to vote to close this question (and similar ones), but there doesn't seem to be any applicable close reason.

Should we introduce a close reason for "too old, unanswered and unlike to be answered anymore" questions?

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  • 2
    You could always upvote one of the answers, to prevent the question from being popped up periodically...
    – womble Mod
    Commented Oct 9, 2015 at 3:30
  • 1
    How about autoclosing any unanswered question whose owner has left sf, as such q can never get an accepted answer?
    – Dani_l
    Commented Oct 9, 2015 at 7:11
  • @Dani_l Answering the OP isn't the only goal though. Though it is the main goal and the drive for the site. Creating a repository of knowledge is also a part of the SE motivaiton.
    – Reaces
    Commented Oct 9, 2015 at 8:09
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    @womble that presupposes that you know that one or more of the answers is correct and you are inclined to vote ( far too many SF players aren't ).
    – user9517
    Commented Oct 9, 2015 at 9:17
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    @Reaces I think the issue getting muddied here is peer-review as a system of knowledge rating and verification - if peer review fails, for any reason, you can no longer derive anything from whatever is left as you can no longer rely on the knowledge to be "true". Accepting an answer, above all else, is a clear indication of the truthfulness/helpfulness of an answer. If that goal can't be reached, what is the point?
    – Dani_l
    Commented Oct 9, 2015 at 9:22
  • 1
    @Dani_l I usually find that the amount of votes is a better indication of the peer review system than the acceptation of the answer. Especially considering there might be several valid solutions but only one can be accepted.
    – Reaces
    Commented Oct 9, 2015 at 10:06
  • @Dani_l We have a number of answers where the accepted answer is clearly wrong. Voting is peer review, sadly, there is demonstrably all too little of that - SF really is little better than a random blog on the internet.
    – user9517
    Commented Oct 9, 2015 at 10:40

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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Nope! The SE robot does a few things with these.

Questions with no upvoted answers are bumped to the front page in pairs at random. I believe two questions are picked every four hours. This is intended, in case anyone happens to have an answer.

I believe there is a cleanup process that deletes these after a time if the question also has a non-positive score...

The rules for deletion of these questions are here:

How does deleting work? What can cause a post to be deleted, and what does that actually mean? What are the criteria for deletion?

Of course, you can certainly vote to delete based on a custom close reason, but I personally won't second it.

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Per the link meta.so Journeyman Geek mentioned, the easiest way to get these removed is to vote the question below 0. It'll get reaped within a week. No need to vote-to-close them and wait for a consensus. You can do it yourself through the power of the mere vote-button.

Of course, this doesn't apply to questions-with-answers. Who knows, maybe that answer actually was worth something.

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