Do we want to unpin the accepted answer from the top?

Question

Stack Overflow has changed the way the answers are sorted:

We no longer pin the accepted answer (with the green checkmark) to the top of the list of answers. By default, we now sort strictly by votes (descending order by highest score), and the accepted answer's order in the list is based on its score.

There is a question now on Meta Stack Exchange if we would like to have the accepted answer unpinned on our site:

We can change the way the engine sorts answers in site settings. We would like to hear from you all if it is something you want to see on your site. [...] We are going to collect feedback before the end of September 19th.

I am posting this question here to discuss what would work best for the Parenting Stack Exchange site.

Examples of questions where the sort order would change if accepted answer is unpinned from the top:
How often should I bathe my newborn?
How can I get my 12-month baby to sleep in her bed?
How do you feed a picky eater?
...

[Update Sep 21]

As of today, a substantial fraction of all Stack Exchange sites still has not entered their verdict (Unpin vs Keep the pin) on the original meta.se post.

We have communicated to CM that we, like other sites, will take more time to discuss the topic and reach a community consensus.

Answer 1

No, continue to pin accepted answers from the top.

I would suggest not unpinning answers, particularly on Parenting.

My reasoning has nothing to do with old answers that would change sort order. I tend to think that's a relatively unimportant thing on most sites where there is not an "outdated" element (StackOverflow being the biggest example of course - where an answer that worked for v2.0 of a software in 2014 doesn't work in v8.0 in 2021); Parenting answers nearly never have any time component (maybe some technology based ones, but that's relatively infrequent). "How do I help my child learn to behave properly" is timeless, and the best answer in 2014 is probably still the best one now.

On the other hand, in the now, I feel like it will be somewhat negative in the (relatively infrequent) case that an answer is accepted that is not the highest voted one. That's because Parenting questions and answers, for better or for worse, have somewhat of an emotional component to them. When an asker asks a question, and sees an answer they're happy with, accepting it and pinning it to the top makes them feel like they're satisfied - they got their answer, good experience.

If there's another answer that's more highly upvoted, but not consistent with their opinion, or their specific needs, etc., or just not what they prefer, that asker will see that answer first if it's unpinned - and maybe not see the answer they like at all, if it's fifth or sixth by upvotes! It takes the asker away from the question entirely. While I can see the argument for doing that - not giving them a special vote, it's supposed to be a database of questions for the world - that ignores the human component that is our "asker" base, which is not as big as we'd like it.

Pinning the accepted answer to the top lets them have that say - and, for the specific question they asked, they are the best judge of the most appropriate answer right then. The highest voted answer ends up second, and I suspect on Parenting you get a lot more people who read all the answers than you do on StackOverflow. (It's probably harder to judge the metrics - people don't tend to copy and paste parenting advice like they do programming code, unfortunately.)

It does mean if a late answer comes in, it won't ever be accepted in most cases; but I don't think that's a big deal - again, I suspect people do read those second/third/fourth answers; if they don't, then it's not getting moved to the top anyway.

Answer 2

Yes, unpin the accepted answer from the top

Most of the reasons for unpinning the accepted answer are well articulated here and here.

• The users want to see the highest rated answer at the top. At least, this is the case when there is no accepted answer. It is not clear why some answer that fits a single person should overrule the community consensus. Marking that answer with a green checkbox is enough, there is no need to also pin it to the top.

• Results of the experiment recently carried out on Stack Overflow support unpinning. "As expected, there were no negative repercussions when we made this change [to unpin the accepted answer]." There are no data to support that the results on Parenting Stack Exchange would be different.

• Unpinning the accepted answer has an effect on only a minority of the questions/answers on Parenting Stack Exchange. For what it's worth, in 3 out of 3 cases posted in the OP above, unpinning would improve the thread by keeping the best answer at the top.

• This SEDE query has many more examples where unpinning improves the thread by keeping the best answer at the top:
  Questions where accepted answers don't have the highest score
  (Note that this SEDE query is largely based on the SEDE query from JJJ.)
  The questions are sorted by score difference = the score of the top-scoring answer minus the score of the accepted answer, with the highest score difference first. All 10 out of the top 10 questions have the top-scoring answer that is better or the same in quality compared to the accepted answer. This can be easily seen by examining these threads:
  My 3 year old daughter thinks she is white. Should I tell her she's not?
  Should I encourage/persuade my 3 year old to watch kids TV shows that she finds scary or upsetting?
  If my 5yr old is an exceptional liar, should I expect that she will continue lying as she gets older?
  Why does my daughter smile and start to laugh at me when I am noticeably really angry at her?
  My girlfriend has mentioned disowning her 14 y/o transgender daughter
  5yrs old being bossy... Is this too much or tolerable at this age?
  Too many languages?
  How do I explain the reasons behind protesting and rioting to my children?
  Child refuses to accept being wrong
  What's an appropriate age to involve kids in life changing decisions?