How to educate new users about accepting answers

Question

I just had a pretty heated discussion - at least on my side - with the moderator casperOne about a comment to one of my own answers asking the user to accept my answer. My answer was the only one to the question.

I was told that comments are not the place to ask the user to accept the answer, as this is considered noise. I found this question here on meta stating that both of the following actions are ok:

1. Posting a comment to my own answer referring the user to the FAQ here on meta on how to accept answers.
2. Posting a general comment to the question itself if there are multiple answers telling the OP that he should accept an answer and also linking him to the FAQ.

Now, that's pretty much the same, with only one difference: In my case I asked the user to accept my answer. As there were no others, I'd say "no harm done" but obviously that's not the case.

casperOne asked me to post this question to clarify that issue:

How to educate a new user about how to accept answers?

Answer 1

Intent is key here: are you honestly trying to educate the OP about accepting answers, or simply pressure them into accepting your answer?

You can easily check to see if a user knows how to use the "accept" feature - have they ever accepted anything? Being very new to the site is also a good indicator that they're still learning how things work; someone who's been here for years, has answered many questions of his own, and accumulated thousands of rep points probably already knows how things work.

If not, making them aware of this feature can be helpful - but try to include some guidance about how and when they should use it. Don't say, "accept my answer" - that doesn't teach them anything, other than that you want your answer accepted.

If a particular answer is helpful in solving your problem, mark it as "accepted" by clicking the little checkmark next to it. If your questions are receiving unhelpful answers, clarify what you're looking for or leave constructive comments on the answers explaining how they fall short.

Something like that - posted once on one question from a user who hasn't previously used "accept" and whom you have reason to believe has gained some benefit from answers to his question - is fine. Note that it provides specific guidance as to when accepting an answer is appropriate - and that there's no specific mention of your answer, of accept rate, or of reputation.

Repeated comments on multiple questions from users who are already using the Accept feature, or which seem to be more focused on coercion and less on education, will be deleted on sight.

Answer 2

Accepting answers is optional. It's nice, sure, but it's not required. Look at your accept rate here: will you like it if I badger you to accept this answer, should it remain the only one, because your accept rate is so low?

Whether you genuinely believe that your answer should be accepted for the better of the community, and that your comment is helping to educate the user, for most of us these comments come off as noise and/or rep-whoring.

There are a lot of reasons why the OP shouldn't accept your answer simply because you asked/told him/her to. Maybe it didn't actually solve their problem. It's also quite possible there are better answers in the making; maybe they are waiting a sufficient period before believing there's only one answer and you nailed it.

I think it's actually a worse problem when inferior answers are accepted early, especially when the OP has been pressured into doing so. Since accepted answers are subsequently largely ignored, this can actually prevent a better solution from being posted.

Answer 3

I'd consider the question you linked to be a duplicate of this:

Is it appropriate to comment on people's accept rate?

While speaking specifically about accept rate, I consider it to be the canonical reference about commenting to users about how the site works, instead of focusing on the question.

The fact of the matter is that a user doesn't want to accept an answer or upvote, they are still completely welcome on Stack Overflow. There is nothing that states that they have to participate in the gamification elements of the site.

That said, taking your statement (emphasis mine):

with the moderator casperOne about a comment to one of my own answers asking the user to accept my answer

That's the problem with your comment as your campaigning for the acceptance of your answer.

Also note these other comments from you:

@JohnB: Great! What was the final solution? Oh and please don't forget to accept my answer by clicking the check mark to the left of it.

@tesicg: You are welcome :-) Please don't forget to accept my answer by clicking the checkmark to the left of it.

All of these are urging the person to use the site, yes, but you're also doing it to your benefit. It's one thing to ask "how can I educate a user on how the site works", it's another to do it to inflate your rep.

This one in particular is my favorite:

@user1447851: No problem. I upvoted your question, so you got some reputation. :-) Accepting my answer using the checkmark to the left will give you another two rep.

Basically, you're trying to inflate your rep by making it seem like you're doing the user a favor in getting them two more rep. Nice work.

That said, comments are not the place to inform users how to use the site. They are certainly not the place to encourage users to perform actions to inflate your reputation.

If you truly want to encourage users how to use the site, do so in a neutral way, and don't do it in the comments.

If they have contact information in their profile, feel free to contact them through there. However, I wouldn't take that as an invitation to spam them about it.

Answer 4

Accepting answers is optional, and there isn't any restriction on when it should be accepted. I could wait 20 days before accepting an answer, hoping to have a better answer, or an answer that really explains in detail what I am asking.

A comment about accepting an answer could make sense in few cases, but for sure you should not remind a user who is a 10K user in some Stack Exchange site that answers can be accepted, nor should you do it to get your answer accepted the same day you answered. It would probably make sense if it were done on a site in private beta phase, where 99% of the users are new to Stack Exchange sites. Even in this case, I would find preferable if the comment is written from a user who didn't answer.
As another example, you could comment about accepting the answer if the OP comments saying your answer was helpful for him, but you should consider users cannot accept an answer before X hours. (At least that is true for low reputation users.) Yet, it should not be something that is repeated more than once for the same user, and not to every user who doesn't accept your answer.

Answer 5

I would ask the OP if your answer helped him/her with their problem and if there is anything more they need for this question. That gets the discussion moving towards getting them the complete answer they need and having you be the one that provides it.