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Moderators accepting answers on user’s behalf after a certain time period

Sometimes there's a question with an unaccepted answer that was asked by a currently inactive user.

After a certain amount of time, the "community" should be able to accept an answer on behalf of inactive / deleted users, in case nothing was accepted

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    By mod, do you mean the 'Community' user?
    – Tim Post
    Aug 9, 2010 at 15:51
  • 4
    Why? What would be the advantage, besides that somebody gets 15 rep?
    – sth
    Aug 9, 2010 at 15:55
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    Sometimes I wish feature requests/ideas were only welcome from those with 20k plus rep. Oh wait, I have 7k, and this counts as an idea. :-\
    – hobodave
    Aug 9, 2010 at 17:29
  • Actually this wasn't a duplicate, some old, basic questions such as stackoverflow.com/questions/201718/… won't ever have an accepted answer, due to "yigal" disappearing.
    – bobobobo
    Sep 26, 2012 at 14:25
  • @TimPost Yes, the community user would do fine.
    – bobobobo
    Sep 26, 2012 at 14:25

2 Answers 2

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"Accept" is meaningless unless performed by the user who asked the question. There's nothing special about that status other than that it can only be granted by the user who asked the question. Take that away, and you have nothing.

Not every question can have an accepted answer. Not every question needs an accepted answer. If you like an answer, then up-vote it.

See: Moderators accepting answers on user’s behalf after a certain time period

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  • Not really nothing at all, but the docking benefit is completely covered by the fact that whatever answer would be "community-accepted" will probably be on top by votes anyway.
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Aug 9, 2010 at 15:56
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    @Grace: well, there's also a green check mark. But my point is, those things don't signify anything if they're attached to an answer the OP hasn't blessed. As you note, the system could be adjusted to always highlight the top answer, but... that's a bit like giving the gold medal winner a second gold medal for having the goldest medal.
    – Shog9
    Aug 9, 2010 at 16:03
  • I completely agree with the fact that it is wrong for anyone besides the question author to give that author's opinion of acceptance. I don't think the top answer should be highlighted - I'm saying that, additionally, anything that checkmark mechanically performs (indicating a higher level of usefulness towards solving the specific problem, and docking) are well-addressed by community upvotes. Appending support to your answer, as it were.
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Aug 9, 2010 at 16:08
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    @Grace: gotcha. I have no idea why this gets suggested so often, and in so many different forms, but it always feels like it's about a desire for that status, that checkmark, without any real care for how it's obtained. Just wanted to hammer that home again ;-)
    – Shog9
    Aug 9, 2010 at 16:28
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    And if one really feels like an answer to an older question deserves something "like" an accept, drop a bounty on it. Admittedly it's still not acceptance, but the bounty award is shown on the answer (giving an indication to other users that the answer was particularly useful to you), and the answerer gets the bounty rep as a bonus.
    – John Rudy
    Aug 9, 2010 at 16:51
  • "Accept" means your answer is the right answer to the question.
    – bobobobo
    Sep 26, 2012 at 14:27
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It could just be that the person is gone because their cookie vanished. It is conceivable that they may come back, become a registered user and ask for their accounts to be merged.

I'm not so sure that this is a good idea. There may be a case for it on questions older than a year, though. Still, it just seems wrong to do.

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