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Why does the “Unanswered Questions” tab show questions that have answers?

I don't know if this question is relevant or not, but I was just trying to read some unanswered questions on Stack Overflow, and when I visted page 15778 I saw that all the questions were answered (although they were not accepted).

I was just wondering, is it right to keep those questions in the Unanswered tab as it might be the case that many users may have fogotten to accept the answers?

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  • An "unanswered" question is defined as a question that has no upvoted answers and has no accepted answer. – Mysticial Nov 2 '12 at 19:48
  • But I have found that there are many question for which people have given answers which are relevant but still there is no upvote nor the answer has been accepted. Acceptance and non acceptance is dependent on owner I agree but I guess some relevant answers are also getting lost. Sorry if I am making no sense but I felt it like that – Rahul Tripathi Nov 2 '12 at 19:50
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    If you think an answer is relevant, then vote it up. Then the question won't be "unanswered" anymore. – Rob Kennedy Nov 2 '12 at 19:51
  • @RobKennedy:- I highly accept your point Sir. And I am really sorry if I am getting it wrong but dont you think that this is diverting from the meaning of Unanswered? – Rahul Tripathi Nov 2 '12 at 19:54
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    Nope. The "unanswered" tab gives questions that don't have quality answers — either because they don't have answers at all, or because the answers they've gotten aren't good enough that anyone else has voted on them. Look at it as a list of questions where there's an opportunity for someone else to jump in and give a better answer. – Rob Kennedy Nov 2 '12 at 19:57
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Yes, it's correct to keep those questions on the "unanswered" tab. The tab is not only for questions with no answers, but also for questions with no quality answers — no answers that have gotten any votes. Questions are in that state not just because of the asker, but also because nobody has read those answers and thought they were good enough to vote on.

You can think of the tab as a list of questions where there's an opportunity for someone (maybe you) to provide a better answer. There are lots of things you can do about a question on that list:

  • If you think some of the existing answers are good, then vote them up. That will take the question off the "unanswered" list.
  • If none of the answers are good enough to get your vote, but some are almost good, then edit to improve them, and then vote them up.
  • If there are no answers, or none of the answers are close, then answer the question yourself. (That won't immediately take the question off the list, but it will promote the question to the front page, so new people might look, read your answer, and vote it up.)
  • If the question isn't clear, post a comment asking for clarification.
  • If you want to know the answer to the question, you can offer a bounty.
  • If you don't know the answer, but you know someone else who might, then share the question with your friends and colleagues.

Another possibility is that the question doesn't really belong. In that case, vote to close it.

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