4

Very related to this voting question, it seems that not very many questions have any accepted answers. Why is this; are they simply all still so new that no best answer has materialized yet, or do the askers not know that they can (and should!) select an answer?

I guess we should just wait another week and see how things evolve. Do you agree, or should we begin some active urging?

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
3

I think that there are some questions that are too subjective to have a one-right-answer. However, I've also seen several that clearly DO have a definitive answer, but it hasn't been marked. In those cases, I suspect it is a problem stemming from the unfamiliarity of some of our users with how SE works.

I do hope we get to the point where nearly all definitive answers are marked as such.

2
  • 2
    Some of them are also answers that take time to implement and figure out of they are working or not.
    – cabbey
    Apr 10, 2011 at 19:20
  • 1
    +1. @Beofett actually marked a response of mine to his question as accepted several days after I had responded. The delayed reaction may be part of it. I, too, hope to see more answers marked in the long term.
    – Aarthi
    Aug 8, 2011 at 15:20
1

It might be because when it comes to parenting, there are no right or wrong answers that apply to all. There are only opinions, and everything is subjective.

1
  • Yep, good point. It's been mentioned before here on meta that the SE engine is not suitable for something that by definition is as subjective as parenting.
    – Torben Gundtofte-Bruun
    Apr 7, 2011 at 18:12
0

What should the asker of a question do if there are many good but differing subjective answers?

Should the asker pick the best one (most research, best written, clearest, etc) and chose that as the answer, or just +1 all the good answers with a comment about the one they're going to try?

More feedback from askers would be great.

Is there any easy way (other than just counting them) to see how many of the 450 (or so) questions have no accepted answer?

2
  • 1
    Generally, the guideline is select the answer that is the most relevant to the question. If one answer is not researched, not well written (keep in mind you can edit to improve the writing!), etc., but it gave you precisely the answer you needed, by all means accept it as your answer. Among several good choices, select the one that was most helpful to you.
    – user420
    Aug 8, 2011 at 13:16
  • 1
    What he said :-) Consider the "check mark" to indicate what the asker prefers, and the votes to indicate what the crowd prefers.
    – Torben Gundtofte-Bruun
    Aug 8, 2011 at 15:51

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .