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The current requirement for proposing a tag synonym is five score in that tag. Would it make sense to also allow people with accepted answers to make proposals, even if they don't clear the score hurdle?

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An answer is accepted from a user because it helped him more than the other answers. Between an answer with a score of 5, and another answer with the same score that has been accepted, there isn't much difference in term of quality; it just means who asked the question preferred the other question for any reason: Maybe one question contained example code, while the other didn't use any example snippets; maybe the accepted question was given from a user the OP trusts better; maybe the accepted answer was more understandable from the OP because it used words that were more comprensible for the OP.

So far, I have seen accepted answers with a score of -2 or lower. In this case, the OP (a single user) accepted the answer, but 2 or more users down-voted it. I think the two down-votes count more than the answer being accepted.

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  • They could just count an accepted answer as 5 votes for the purpose of synonym qualification, so if there were downvotes, then it would calculate that in. Oct 3, 2011 at 16:11
  • To me, accepting an answer doesn't count as 5 votes, for the simple fact 5 votes require 5 different users, while accepting an answer requires just a user. I find that accepting an answer is rather subjective. It is true, also voting an answer could be subjective, but in that case 5 votes would be the subjective action of 5 different users, which still counts more than the action of a single user.
    – apaderno
    Oct 3, 2011 at 16:22
  • It could be the same user who upvoted 5 answers of yours ... which degrades to a single user.
    – Foo Bah
    Oct 3, 2011 at 16:27
  • @FooBah It could be, but it is not always so, which means that could be doesn't mean it is.
    – apaderno
    Oct 3, 2011 at 16:34
  • FYI, I fixed the incorrect terminology in the question.
    – Pops
    Oct 3, 2011 at 16:54

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