What to do when a low-rep user "abandons" the site without accepting an answer?

Question

Sometimes I see questions asked by super-low-rep users, even reputation-1, which have one (or more) reasonable answers with some upvotes - but no answer is accepted, and the OP doesn't make any comments or indicate they have reason not to accept; they just disappear, possibly forever. This is generally a bit annoying, but my problem is with the case in which it is not immediately clear that the answer is the right one, or that it helped/would help the OP - seeing how s/he has not accepted it; it might make other people doubt its validity when they shouldn't (in my opinion).

So, ok, I upvote it. Now it has, say, 2 instead of 1 upvotes. That still doesn't quite resolve things.

What should I/we do in these cases, as a non-moderator, non-answer-provider, but relatively high-reputation user?

Note: I mean what should I do now, not what possible solutions could there be to this issue involving changes to the system etc.

Answer 1

Currently, such cases are handled on the SE, that then leave also the community leaves the post. Maybe their OP once comes back, it is possible even after years.

Just as curiosity, I wrote a query on the data SE, which lists the questions which have the longest accept time, you can test it here.

As you can see, the record holder accepted an answer to his question after 8.5 years on the SO!

Alternatively, you can find similar questions with an accepted answer for them, and then initate their closure as dupe. You need at least 3k for that.

If you have the same problem, then you can write a new question, working on it and on the answers together with the community. In theory it is possible, but in practice it is unlikely, that your question would be closed as dupe of an abandoned one.

After you can finally accept an answer for that, you can initiate a dupe closure to the original, abandoned question.

These require a lot of work, maybe cleanup tasks like this should be easier in my opinion.

In my opinion, a mechanism what provides a differentiation between the long, unsolved problems, and the abandoned questions, would be surely useful, unfortunately the SE doesn't seem to share this opinion.

I think, at least a mechanism what enables some takeover of the abandoned questions, either by the community, or by induvidual users, would be also useful and needed.

Answer 2

You must remember that the accept is used to mark an answer as the OP's best answer.

What if the OP didn't think that the answer isn't the best and after a while of inactivity or figuring out the solution himself, decides to abandon the question since it is now pretty useless to him. And often times, this means never returning back to the site to ask a question or going over the questions.

@peterh's answer is extremely accurate as users should proceed to upvote the answer if found useful. Please remember that the accept is based on the asker's opinion, not yours or anyone else's.

Answer 3

Upvoting the correct answer from your point of view is the correct way to deal that situation.

The accepted mark only indicate the OP solved his problem, while the most updated answer mark the answer the community judge the best.

Dealing it that way is perfect as it give two roles: - It give power to the community to judge an answer. - It give the final mark to the OP at the same time.

I seen other forum where the moderator can mark an answer when the OP don't come back. Most of the time it can lead to error, as other even often tell the answer don't work. It can lead to playing the point system as well as if you write a nice's answer and the OP don't comeback you got a chance to win those points. It bring situation where the first to answer got a chance to get the accepted mark.

In the end such scenario remove the trust you can have on an accepted answer usefulness.