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Is there any more to do when a wrong answer keeps getting up votes?

I've accepted the correct answer, but the simple answer continues to get up votes.

I've down voted and added a comment to the simple answer explaining where they've been misled (by me in the question).

Is there anything more I can do?

A suggestion is that a down vote by the original questioner should be worth more than just 1 down vote.

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3 Answers 3

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All you can do as the OP is point out your own mistake (via editing your question), downvote wrong answers (if you want...but if they are only wrong because you were unclear you may want to skip this step for ethical reasons), and then leave a comment informing the answerer to the new information. Beyond that, let time, the community, and the natural elements of Stack Overflow take their course.

I don't think the weight of downvotes from the OP should be increased. Besides, the OP is usually one of the least-qualified participants in questions, so their votes shouldn't be worth more than others. It's generous that they even get to vote to begin with since they are the self-professed confused party.

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  • While it's true that OP might be least qualified to judge the solution, they are probably the most qualified to judge how well the solution was presented since the others with the same questiong will (often) have a similar knowledge on the subject as the OP. In my opinion, clearly presenting the solution is almost as important as the solution itself.
    – mgilson
    Aug 31, 2012 at 11:50
  • @mgilson: That's (partly) why the accepted answer is shown first irrespective of the sorting otherwise used.
    – Mark Hurd
    Sep 2, 2012 at 7:26
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  1. Comment on the incorrect answer explaining why it's wrong.
  2. Hopefully enough people on meta (and, after your comment, on SO) will upvote the correct answer and downvote the incorrect one (until, at some point, the "wrong" answerer will edit or delete their answer).
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No, because the answer intended to answer the question as posted to the best of their ability.

If the question is sufficiently different when posed correctly, you should undo edits, let the answer match the question, and re-ask the correct question.

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  • I assume you're answering my general question and not being specific to my actual example (where the simple answer still has more votes than the correct answer). My original unedited question just gave an incorrect hint, which I have since struck out and mentioned this in a comment to the "simple" answer.
    – Mark Hurd
    Dec 21, 2011 at 0:20
  • BTW Should your first "answer" be "answerer"?
    – Mark Hurd
    Dec 21, 2011 at 0:21
  • @Mark it doesn't have to be. It's perfectly valid. It just doesn't read well. Example : "The law intended to answer the problem of ___" Dec 21, 2011 at 14:06

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