A useless answer has been accepted, can something be done?

Question

This is the answer: Setting CSS pseudo-class rules from JavaScript

The problem with this answer is that it's completely useless. I'd go so far as to say wrong. To me, the answer says "no, what you want to do isn't possible, here's some irrelevant documentation". When in fact, it is possible - just read the next three answers.

It was wrong the minute it was written, and it's been sitting around as the accepted answer for close to four years now, on a question with a not too shabby 12.5k views.

The user who asked the question hasn't been seen since he accepted the answer, so it's not like he's going to come back and change his mind.

I tried flagging the answer approximately six months ago:

Please consider deleting (or unaccepting) this answer. It simply does not answer the question, and everyone reading this question in the future would be better off if Bobince's answer was first.

The flag was declined, but there was a reason given:

declined - [..] it doesn't look off-topic enough to be outright removed, and I can't unaccept it either, sorry about that

This Meta question is highly relevant: Blatantly wrong accepted answer

Reading that question makes me wary to post this question, but I'm doing it anyway.

Can something be done?

Answer 1

In fact, something can be done. You can't change the accepted answer, but you can delete it so that the highest-voted answer will be at the top instead.

Moderators aren't supposed to interfere with actual answers, even if they're bad, as one told you with that declined flag.

However, the community is free to delete answers for basically any reason, including "it sucks". As we found out here, 20k users can delete an accepted answer like any other answer, if it has a negative score. So vote to delete it, and hope that others follow suit.

Answer 2

Doesn't look like the user's coming back, so we can't change the acceptance tick.

Remember, the accepted answer is the one that helped the OP most. I can't see how this helped the OP most, though maybe s/he was too quick on the trigger.

You could flag, though IMO coming to meta was the best thing to do. The only thing the mod can do is delete the post, and I'm not sure if we delete wrong posts(don't think so). You can ask the user to flag to delete his own post (accepted posts cannot be self-deleted), a mod will probably act on a self-flag. Or, fix the post.

Posting to meta guarantees(well, in a case where you're correct) that the post will get downvotes and will fade. It has faded.

Anybody from the future will see the downvoted, faded post, and will scroll down, seeing the nicely upvoted post by the crazy regex guy.

Remember, if someone has the same problem, that person will most probably read more than one answer. And nobody will really look at a half-invisible answer with a nice negative number next to it, even if it's up top and has a green thingy.

So there's nothing to worry about now. Next time, post to meta again :)

Update:

I made it correct, visible when someone approves the edit.

Answer 3

Honestly, the best thing you can do is... well, what you just did. Bring it up on Meta.

Remember: Moderators exist to do things that the community can't. Therefore, a moderator won't just delete it. The power of a moderator to delete answers is reserved for cases where the answer is not an answer at all. When the user just posts a link, or if the OP says "thanks!" like this is a forum. The answer does answer the question, however wrongly.

Similarly, it is not the moderators' place to decide if a user's right to accept any answer they choose should be revoked.

It's up to the community to deal with wrong answers. We have that power. Downvotes, and for 20K+ users, we can even vote to delete. And the best way to let the community know about something being amiss is to bring it up here.

This slipped through the cracks. Just let us know, and we'll take care of it from there.