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English version: What should we do when there is a question that we answered a long time ago which has a fairly good number of upvotes but that has no accepted answer?

Is it OK to poke the OP or is this behavior frowned upon? The fact is that some OPs seem to ask a question and then when they get the answer they simply disappear. There's no feedback.

French version: Qu'est-ce que pouvons-nous faire quand il y a une question à laquelle nous avons répondu, qui a des réponses ayant reçu des votes, mais qu'il n'a pas de réponse acceptée ?

Pouvons-nous "pousser" le OP de quelque manière ou est-ce mal vu? En fait, certaines OPs posent une question, et après avoir reçu la réponse, simplement ils disparaissent. Il n'y pas de "feedback".

Feel free to correct any mistake. :)

EDIT: My question was just to encourage people to give more feedback when they ask a question. Seeing their answers accepted, users see that their effort to bring forward the community is rewarded. I'm not saying anything about forcing people to accept, let alone menace them for that. I'm sorry if this is what came out from my question.

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  • Can't it be made Community Wiki, and a mod can accept an answer?
    – Jez
    Commented Aug 29, 2011 at 11:59
  • @Jez: If the answer is good for the SE, why making it a CW? I don't see it as a solution.
    – Alenanno
    Commented Aug 29, 2011 at 12:33

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I'm strongly against poking the OPs on a new question so that they accept answers on an older one. That without speaking about menacing them not to answer if they don't, some do that on SO -- apparently without even checking that there are good answers, just based on the accept percentage --, and it bother me a lot.

I've nothing about gently poking questioners on the question which already has valid answers, especially if the OP has already expressed his satisfaction.

Je suis fortement contre le fait de relancer les questionneurs sur une nouvelle question pour qu'ils acceptent des réponses sur une ancienne. Sans parler de les menacer de ne pas répondre. Ce que certains font sur SO -- apparemment sans même vérifier qu'il y a des bonnes réponses, en se basant juste sur le pourcentage de questions avec une réponse acceptée -- et ça me gène beaucoup.

Je n'ai rien contre demander gentiment sur une ancienne question ayant déjà des réponses valides qu'une d'entre elles soit acceptée, spécialement si le questionneur a exprimé sa satisfaction.

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    Wait, I never talked about menacing. There actually is a mechanism in the SEs that says "before you ask another question consider accepting the ones you asked already" after some time. I know because I received it myself, but I never mentioned menacing or any strong form of indication.
    – Alenanno
    Commented Aug 29, 2011 at 12:32
  • I apologize if you got that impression. I took the opportunity to speak against something I don't want to see here.
    – Un francophone
    Commented Aug 29, 2011 at 13:10
  • Ah ok, I had the feeling you were talking in general. Thanks for specifying here. :)
    – Alenanno
    Commented Aug 29, 2011 at 13:14
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The accept-rate is already there to take care of the user not accepting their answers. So even if it could be tempting to do something about it, but it's not a good idea. This is not the job of the moderator too. It is the responsibility of the user to behave correctly.

Whether it is good or not to point out the accept-rate to the OP, there is two points. First, it's up to the answerer to answer or not to a user that does not show any effort in the community. Second, nice remark like "You might want to accept older answers to have a better accept-rate, this may get you better/faster answers as well" should be encouraged. I usually do this on other SE site, because new users does not necessary read the FAQ (even if they should) and usually they are willing to be "good". But we should avoid "threat" like "if you don't accept answers, we won't reply to you", since it's not true, nor respectable to the OP.

Concerning reputation and reward, I think that the community needs to make good use of their vote to show other that their effort is appreciated. Accepted answer should be see as a bonus.

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  • I've an accept rate of less than 50%, does that show a lack of involvement in the community? The problem is that while I've upvoted some of them, I honestly think that I can't accept any answer for the rest of my questions (none of them had the definitiveness I'd need).
    – Un francophone
    Commented Sep 1, 2011 at 11:23
  • @Unfrancophone That is why I say to have a "nice" remark. Maybe it's not appropriate, we don't know. But generally I use to write this for people with a real bad accept-rate (like <10%) where it becomes pretty sure some of them can be accepted.
    – M'vy
    Commented Sep 1, 2011 at 11:27
  • @Mvy, nice remarks about things like that beckon non nice one, either from the target if it is felt unwarranted, or from others. I've nothing against requests to accept an answer on a question which has valid answers, especially if the questioner states his happiness about some of them. But on a new question? It's not the place.
    – Un francophone
    Commented Sep 1, 2011 at 11:41
  • @M'vy: I wasn't referring to "threats" but I was reflecting about the fact that sometimes there is a wrong behavior, considering the structure of this site. It's true that sometimes you need time to accept an answer, it happened to me too and it still does, but well...
    – Alenanno
    Commented Sep 1, 2011 at 16:07

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