33

I asked a question a few years ago. I did a factory reset and my issue was gone, not solved.

The question has become more popular and I now see there is a popular answer. I would like to think that answer is correct, but I do not know, and I cannot test it as I do not have the issue anymore.

Should I accept it as the correct answer as it looks like it worked for other people, or leave it unaccepted as I do not know it works, nor will ever know unless I replicate the problem?

  • 10
    I always appreciate old questions with unaccepted answers because then newer answers have a chance to make it to the top. – Suragch Apr 7 '17 at 6:08
  • 1
    This is a compelling reason not to accept an answer. I feel a certain pressure to accept answers in gratitude, completeness, and those notifications saying I should accept answers. If this was an answer I would accept it! – Jon Apr 7 '17 at 8:46
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    Gratitude, completeness, and the notification are not reasons to accept an answer. But having an answer solve your problem is a good reason to accept it (even though I wish it weren't pinned to the top). It tells people this actually worked. – Suragch Apr 7 '17 at 9:05
  • 1
    But they are reasons to want to accept – Jon Apr 7 '17 at 9:07
  • You should accept one of these answers that all say "do not" in some form it seems. Adding a NOTE/COMMENT might show why you did NOT accept anything and that seems OK here. Also note you DID get an answer in that you factory reset. – Mark Schultheiss Apr 7 '17 at 20:50
42

If you don't know if the answer is a good answer, then you most certainly shouldn't indicate otherwise by voting on the answer. You should only be accepting the answer if you know that the answer is a good answer to the question.

If other people think that a given answer is a good answer, they're free to vote accordingly.

  • 1
    If I do not accept it does it not imply the answer is a 'bad' answer to the OP's question? Or the OP is lazy and does not accept answers. – Jon Apr 6 '17 at 20:10
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    @Jon No, it doesn't. If you downvote it then that means it's a bad answer. If you refrain from voting then it means you don't know if it's good or not. – Servy Apr 6 '17 at 20:36
  • I was just working off your definition of accepted means a good answer to OP question. But I guess you are saying the reverse implication does not apply. – Jon Apr 7 '17 at 8:45
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    @Jon, you can receive multiple good answers, but can accept at most one. Therefore, it cannot be the case that answers you do not accept are necessarily bad. – John Bollinger Apr 7 '17 at 15:05
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    @Jon In fact, I tend to ignore the accepted answer, since what works for the OP may not work for the widest possible audience; sometimes, it's not even the best answer: it's just the first one that worked for them. – jpaugh Apr 7 '17 at 18:35
23

Accepting an answer indicates that the answer solved the problem you had when asking your question.

If an answer is posted which does not solve your problem, then there is no need to mark it as accepted, regardless of the vote count or if it solved other people's problems.

This is also why it is important to consider that the checkmark only means it solved the OP's problem when viewing other posts, and not that the accepted answer is necessarily the best solution to such a problem.

  • It may be the solution to the problem I had when asking my question. I am guessing it probably is, but I dont know, and cant test. – Jon Apr 6 '17 at 20:05
  • 6
    As Servy notes, if you cannot verify the answer is a solution to the problem, you probably should not be marking it as accepted. – Travis J Apr 6 '17 at 20:06
12

As the others have been saying - no, you should not accept an answer that didn't solve the problem.

But have you considered answering your own question? You did a factory reset. Perhaps it's a bit extreme, but it is what solved your issue and therefore was the answer to your question.

  • 1
    If he does this, I can imagine other people will downvote his own correct answer as "unhelpful" haha - even though I agree. – Worthy7 Apr 7 '17 at 5:33
  • Heh yeah I can see that too - it's a tough one :P – Shadow Apr 7 '17 at 5:34
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    Make it a community wiki answer, sparing you the risk of being affected by votes. – Cœur Apr 7 '17 at 14:42
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    @Cœur That's wrong. CW is not a tool to avoid downvotes. It's a way to indicate that an answer is not the work of one person, but rather is a collaboration of many people, which is simply not the case here. – Servy Apr 7 '17 at 15:07
  • Link this answer in the self answer and indicate that you realize that most people will be better helped by the up voted answers. It will make it clear that the intention is to provide the answer to the OP rather than trying to steal points from the other answers. – Trisped Apr 7 '17 at 18:28
  • @Cœur Wouldn't the authors of upvoted answers loose reputation when it becomes a community wiki? – Yunnosch Apr 8 '17 at 19:37
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    @Yunnosch No; CW means that any votes cast after the post becomes CW don't affect reputation; votes cast before the post becomes CW are unaffected. Additionally, someone posting a CW answer to a question doesn't make any other answers CW. Finally, as I mentioned before, posting a CW answer still isn't' appropriate in this context; it's not what CW is meant for. – Servy Apr 10 '17 at 14:25
-1

Implementing a fuzzy logic for 'what is a correct answer' would be great, but by default this is already done by the most voted answer. Don't accept an answer than doesn't solve your problem, but the issue here is that other people with the information that you gave had their problem solved, so if you didn't have yours solved maybe you didn't give all the information.

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