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

Question

I've seen a lot of comments on SO, of the kind (paraphrasing brutally):

• (on questions) if you start accepting some answers, I might deign to post a reply
• (on answers) good answer, but perhaps too much effort invested for a user with such a low acceptance rate

(OK, I'm exaggerating horribly - but that is the gist)

Personally I find these a bit abrasive... is it me? Should we discourage this? Ignore it? Encourage it?

I'm keen to get people's thoughts...

I like the idea of the acceptance rate, but I don't like the idea of rubbing people's noses in it...

Answer 1

As has been mentioned over and over again on Meta, in a wide variety of topics relating to 'unethical questions', 'newbie users', 'annoying users', 'leech-like users', 'unwise architecture' and other such questions, the answer has always returned:

Answer the technical question. No one should care who asked it or why.

Anyone who would choose not to answer a question based on someone's acceptance rate is being selfish and anti-community. It is actually against their best interest to be this way, because they lose out on the up-votes they may have acquired.

Flagging a comment might be the best way to go, except that flagged comments are silently deleted, and the commenter will never know that it happened. I think the best we can do is to flag for moderator attention, and have the moderators create a 'form letter' that says some variation of 'don't be a jerk, answer the question.'

On the other hand, for users who don't know about the 'acceptance rate' they will require someone to tell them about it, and even an obnoxious warning might be better than no warning at all.

To sum up:

NO, it is not appropriate to change your behavior because of some user's acceptance rate.

This includes commenting on it.

Answer 2

I thought this was the whole point of showing acceptance rates: to publicly shame people who don't accept answers. What other point would we have for showing it?

Now, if someone wants to leave a comment to explain to a newbie that they need to accept some answers or people won't keep answering their questions, then that's good because it's teaching them the type of behavior that is expected from question-askers (since they obviously haven't noticed the mark of shame below their sig).

Of course, if the person leaving the comment is being a real a-hole, then by all means flag it.

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Update: For the record, SE stopped showing accept rate, because (three years after I wrote the above) they realized the same thing: the only thing you really accomplish by showing the accept rate is to publicly shame someone, and to encourage others to further shame them.

Answer 3

Which would you prefer -- a comment on a question that indicates that you should improve your acceptance rate or risk not getting answers or simply ignoring the question and move on. A civil (we should always be civil, IMO) comment is actually more helpful than just ignoring the OP's behavior. I have and will continue to civilly point out how the OP can be a better SO citizen.

I don't and probably wouldn't comment on answers as I see no point in trying to get other people to conform to how I choose to interact with people who don't accept answers.

Answer 4

The focus on SO should be on improving questions and answers, not fixing broken people.

Leaving these type of comments, is very abrasive. They are off-topic and in the long run add no value to future googlers. The user already knows they have a low accept rate, they can see it when they look at their question.

I always click on the flag button. I don't think this should be tolerated.

It's not like it will likely change their behaviour.

Answer 5

From what I've seen, higher acceptance rates usually go along with users who tend to be more "involved" in their posts after asking the question (reading and responding to responses and comments, providing feedback about what did and didn't work, etc). This is opposed to "drive-by" behavior that goes hand-in-hand with low accept rates -- ask a question, and then (seemingly) never return to it again.

Being "involved" in one's question is useful to both those who post answers (they get feedback as to whether their solution helped or not, or how it could be improved), and to the community at large -- others may have the same problem, come across the question, and avoid pitfalls/learn more from the OP's feedback. Without involvement and response from the OP, a question can sometimes stagnate with no clear resolution (unless the answer is very straightforward).

So, all of that rambling out of the way -- I think the larger issue is increasing user's "involvement" in their own questions. If we can encourage this behavior by encouraging users to have a higher accept rate (with the end goal being more involvement, not necessarily blind acceptance of the top answer), then we should do so.

Thoughts?

Answer 6

I wouldn't comment on the answers. They saw the user had a low acceptance rate and gave an answer anyway. It also adds no value to the site -- the answerer gets notified, not the asker, and they should already know.

As for the questions, I'm all for it (so long as it's civil; sarcasm is fine by me too). I saw one along the lines of "only accepting 19% on your questions -- they all can't be wrong" and it motivated the person to start reviewing his questions. He had asked 90+ questions and I checked at the end of the day his acceptance rate had risen to 44%.

Sometimes people just need a little nudge.

Answer 7

I would like my answers to be accepted if/when they're the best.. but I don't feel a need to point out that a given user isn't accepting answers.

Maybe they don't know. Maybe they like more than one equally.

Maybe they don't care.

But commenting on it does seem to be a bit obnoxious, in my book :)

Answer 8

New users sometimes genuinely don't know about the accept feature, and a "Hey did you know?" can be appropriate. There may be some users who forget to accept answers as well. When you come across a clear case where the user has said something like "Perfect, thanks! I'll accept this once the wait period's up" and not subsequently accepted, a reminder comment may also be appropriate.

The rest of the time you're telling someone who knows about it to accept answers they don't want to accept. There are plenty of valid reasons not to accept -- not yet having a solution despite having an upvoted answer is probably more common for people who ask difficult questions. Those with real, difficult problems shouldn't need to accept answers that aren't solutions.

In summary:

• Reminders to accept can be useful. I recommend being overly polite and so on.
• Nagging about the accept rate isn't helpful, because you don't have the right context to know why their accept rate is low. If you do know the context, leave the first type of comment instead.

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Personally I hate the fact that the accept rate is displayed. First, I reject the claim some have made here that having a low accept rate displayed is not a form of punishment and shaming. To quote a comment made on another answer:

Accept rate isn't to shame people, but to allow answerers to concentrate more time on those people who engage more in the site – Casebash May 10 '10 at 5:32

The purpose is irrelevant. What are the actual effects?

1. Users make comments intended to shame those with low accept rates.
2. Users make polite comments intended to gently remind a user to accept may still cause the user shame. You've probably noticed that people can get awkward when you tell them they've got food in their teeth or something. Now imagine that everyone in the room heard you tell them (equivalent of publicly posting a comment). It would be perfectly natural to be embarrassed in such a situation.
3. Users who notice or are told that other users refuse to spend time on their questions due to the accept rate are likely to feel rejection and/or shame and/or any number of other negative emotions.

There may be the rare case where a user is genuinely glad to be reminded if they had intended to accept an answer and forgotten. In all other cases, the emotional effect is negative. (You may argue that this is desired, but I am not making any claim about that yet so it's irrelevant.)

Given this negative effect, let's enumerate what it causes in turn:

1. It discourages people from asking about difficult problems that are less likely to be solved. Stack Exchange is about expertise. Expert questions should be encouraged.
2. It punishes people who have in fact asked expert questions that haven't yet been adequately answered. Not only with feeling rejected or whatever, but in not getting further answers.
3. As a result of the previous two, it pushes away experts who want to do more than answer, or want to participate in a site where they and other experts could do more than answer.
4. It pushes away people who want to participate in a site where people are treated with respect indiscriminately.
5. It aids and encourages rep whores. Yes, everyone is free to participate as they wish, including playing the rep game. But we should encourage excellent and constructive behavior, not just acceptable behavior. Encouraging people to give all the attention to the easy-rep questions doesn't make this the valuable site for real development issues that we want it to be.
6. It pushes away new users who weren't aware of the feature until they received a nasty welcome.
7. Users who see negative comments think they're acceptable.

Now yes, there are users who just come to leech solutions and don't care to accept answers that they should. Should they be punished for having a low accept rate? Some points:

1. Their questions may still be useful to others if answered.
2. It's easier to use a throwaway account each time than get engaged in the site; the punishment may be ineffective.
3. Have you seen how many people continually post crap without learning their lesson, even if their questions go unanswered? Again, the punishment is ineffective.
4. You'll always have people like me who will answer a decent question if they can regardless of who asked it, why they asked it, or whether they've accepted previous answers. The punishment is ineffective.
5. If the punishment's ineffective, the only point in executing it is vindictiveness. I don't want to participate in a site that promotes vindictive behavior.
6. How can it be valid to ignore questions but invalid to ignore answers (not accept them)? This behavior seems inherently hypocritical to me. We don't stamp "ignores questions from low accept rate users" on user cards, why should we be stamping "low accept rate" on user cards either? Questions require effort and have value too, not just answers. Ignoring a question due to an external factor harms the site.

Yes, we should always encourage people to leave polite and constructive comments. But no matter how we encourage good behavior or discourage bad behavior, these comments will always be made if the accept rate is displayed. When it comes to the accept rate, there's a simple and effective option to reduce abuse. Get rid of it. The downsides are prominent and the upside is questionable as to its existence and entirely dubious as to its morality. I certainly feel that the benefits of removing it greatly outweigh the benefits we purportedly get from it.

Answer 9

I find being forced to accept an answer completely conterproductive to the whole concept of SO, and I'm surprised that so few people don't think like this. I have been forced on three occasions to accept answers that do not answer my question purely because they were the only answer submitted. Now anyone viewing those questions may be misled into thinking it is a good answer when it is not.

This causes a number of unproductive behaviours, such as people giving unhelpful answers to questions just because no one else has answered it just to bump up their rep, people avoiding asking questions that may not be answered correctly, and only asking things that they could just have googled.

Answer 10

I believe that it should be encouraged. Personally I give every answer value because people spend time to answer. Everybody's time is precious.

Answer 11

I'd still post an answer, even though the op has a low accept rate. It might do somebody some good when he's googling for the solution to the problem he's lost 5 days worth of sleep over. So if not for the (i have to agree, slacking) op, then FTW!

Answer 12

I think we should inform the user about the accept rate, if he/she is having much lower accept rate. Because if the user is not checking out the correct answer, non of the future user's will get to know what was the exact answer for this particular question. Some user's might think that this question is still unanswered. So, might look for another solution. So, it would be better to let the user know that "You should check the appropriate answer, so that the future user's can get benefit for the same."

Other case is that, if a user is new and he doesn't know about checking an answer, we should inform him about it.

Answer 13

I got disciplined today for having a low accept rate on SO. It was distracting, useless and irritating, and of course, off topic. I think it's abrasive and doesn't really achieve any purpose, aside from irritating me. When I answer people's questions, I don't even pay attention to their accept rate. If I know the answer, I will post. That's the whole point of the site, right? Lately it seems that SO is there to discipline people.

Answer 14

I really find it counterproductive to force users accept answers, even if these answers didn't solve their problem.

Also I find it hard to understand why anybody would make decision whether to answer or not based on acceptance rate. If it's good question, than the answer is not only for the poster, but for anyone who will have same problem in the future. A good answer to such a question will get lot of up-votes. And after all, answer being accepted is worth only as much, as 1½ up-votes.

Answer 15

I would argue there is no wrong doing in informing new users on how to show gratitude towards people that take their time to answer their questions, as long as it's done politely. The fact is that some (not to say many) new people on Stack Overflow does not know about the accept rate, or simply does not know how to accept answers. I have seen cases where users have informed the OP about the accept rate, referring to for example How does accept rate work?, and in a few cases the OP commented back something like "Hey, I didn't know that, cheers!". I believe that most people actually likes giving credit back when they receive great help.

Posting a comment on an answer saying it's not worth the effort is an absolute no go for me, no matter if it's done politely or not.

Answer 16

Well, in a way the accept rate just symbolizes acknowledgement of effort. Bob asks a question, and relies on random strangers to answer. It's appreciated if Bob gives acknowledgement.

And many users seem to not know about it. Here's one where I made a comment, maybe a bit snarkY? Well anyway the guy listened. I'll tell him thanks now since he did it(hey two ways )..

Can we store an object in a file for later retrieval?

I only comment if it's under 30 or 40%. If it's something like 57% it's really fine.

But I'll quit my policing, I can see why it's annoying to admins(I'm no official bobby ).

I would humbly advise though.. that the accept rate be displayed one-step beyond the naked page, i.e, maybe a little Alt-Text on the user-icon or some javascript pop-up, that advanced users can see. Otherwise, it's BAM! in our faces when someone has a 0% accept rate(the color is different so it sort of pops out).

Answer 17

This may be restating what has already been said here, but I wanted to make my voice heard on this issue since it has always rubbed me the wrong way (and devinb is also spot on with his answer here).

My problem with calling out people with low accept rates (and publicly showing accept rates in general) is that the practice publicly reprimands a user, and is generally done by a non-moderator user. This calls out the "offender" while flat-out stating that if they mark an answer on other questions, others will help them on this one. Why do people feel disinclined to help others, especially when in reality it is not just the OP that the answer (officially marked or otherwise) assists, but the entire community.

So what if the OP didn't mark your answer as THE answer. Others can still vote you up, you still can get reputation that way. The OP likely still was assisted, others viewing the same question are assisted, and, bonus, you likely learned something and grew in the process of answering the question.

I also don't accept the underlying premise that questions without officially marked answers are not useful. Generally speaking, I've noticed that the highest community voted answers on a question are usually the more correct ones anyway, despite what the OP may have indicated.

Finally, I think leaving such comments on questions by low accept rate users is looking to solve things from the wrong angle. Rather than publicly calling them out, these sorts of 'best practices' should be left to the SE system itself (for example, if their accept rate is below X percent, maybe the system gently prompts the user that they are able to mark past questions as answered once they create a new question).

I really thought the point of SO and SE communities were to help others, not to be reputation fiends.

Answer 18

I think the real problem is that people are not, for reasons discussed elsewhere, accepting answers and there is no mechanism in place to force or even gently remind questioners to go back and accept answers. So people are taking the law into their own hands. I understand, being one myself, how someone with a few hundred reputation points is left wondering why they should continue to participate in stack overflow when their efforts go unrewarded. I get that people should participate for the good of all, but the primary motivation for the folks with 500 reputation points is the gathering of reputation points.

Fix the real problem and the number of acceptance rate comments will drop to almost nothing.

Answer 19

As I am without doubt the worst offender of non acceptance - you will probably disregard what I have to say.

Still here goes:

I am not a developer. I write code for myself for my business. Therefore, I do not spend much time on developer-type activities(no don't even ask) and am not really up-to-speed on what SO expects from.

YES with hindsight I should have sat down and read the posting guide. BUT I am busy on getting things done and I didn't. Sorry.

Whenever I post a question on SO, I get the feeling that a large part of the population on SO are more interested the correct format of my post and are happy to poke fun (sometimes quite bluntly). Well, yes I should be more thoughtful BUT I am looking for help. It would be so much friendlier if I got the help (with the occasional "hey, you know, why not accept the odd answer, it's important to us") rather than the torrent of comments and instant closing of my question. To a lay man like me I don't even know why acceptance is important - I don't check whether the guy answering me has a high rate or reputation - I just look at the answer and test it. I am sure it makes a difference to people on here but I have no-clue why.

Perhaps you don't want non-developers on here. OK, fine, but I do some interesting stuff, and I suspect some of my questions will yield answers of interest to others.

OK, I have put my helmet on, bring on the barrage!