-8

Possible Duplicate:
Moderators accepting answers on user's behalf after a certain time period

Are moderators allowed to accept answers on questions belonging to other users?

If not, should they be able to do it?

I think this should be allowed only after certain amount of time (such as 1 month or so), as it would greatly lower number of unaccepted right answers

Improve this question
1
  • I really don't think this question should have been closed. We should be able to re-evaluate decisions that were made years ago to decide if the community has changed its mind over time.
    – Shane C
    Commented Dec 7, 2011 at 18:00

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
6

No. The checkmark belongs to the question OP. The OP can accept any answer they want to.

Moderators do not moderate posts for technical accuracy, nor do they have a mechanism for changing the accepted answer.

Improve this answer
8
  • and is there any mechanism to allow accept answer, if you're not OP? like vote to accept or so..
    – Marek Sebera
    Commented Sep 11, 2011 at 15:52
  • Nope. Only the OP can accept or unaccept an answer.
    – user102937
    Commented Sep 11, 2011 at 15:54
  • 2
    I have however lately discovered that moderators are able to delete accepted answers (the answerer itself can't do that unless OP unaccepts the answer). So moderators have in some way an influence on the ultimately accepted answer for the case the OP reviews the question and accepts another answer.
    – user138231
    Commented Sep 11, 2011 at 16:06
  • @Chiciray: Yes, that is true. But accepted answers get more leeway from me than other answers; to be deleted, it clearly has to be unhelpful (i.e. the question OP is just accepting the answer to raise their accept rate, not because the answer has merit).
    – user102937
    Commented Sep 11, 2011 at 16:12
  • How about this question, which clearly states the only given answer was correct, yet it was not accepted? Should this possibly be an exception to this process?
    – Gaffi
    Commented Mar 31, 2012 at 3:58
  • What about users that just asked a single question and haven't been online in the past year or six months or so, or deregistered their account or similar? The user is unlikely to come back (at least on that account), so it would make sense to allow a responsible user (or more than one?) to say that an answer answers the question. This function can possibly (also?) be given to users with high-rep overall and/or in that specific tag.
    – Bernhard Barker
    Commented Apr 6, 2013 at 15:16
  • 2
    Unless I did this wrong, 165k questions with no accepted answer have users that have only asked 1 question and haven't been online in 6 months and are thus potential candidates for the above. This is not to mention the countless other potential conditions that can also be considered.
    – Bernhard Barker
    Commented Apr 6, 2013 at 15:40
  • Whoops, it should be this -> 143k. All these questions have at least one answer.
    – Bernhard Barker
    Commented Apr 6, 2013 at 15:49

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .