1

I've noticed from time to time, users leave comments requesting other users increase their accept rate.

Is this behavior accepted/acceptable in our community?

If users don't feel they've received an "acceptable" answer on questions, should they be "punished"¹ in future questions for not accepting an answer on previous questions?

Are people really not answering questions because of low accept rates?

Example comment: In the last hundred years and the last time

You’ve asked twelve questions, but accepted zero answers. Why should anyone think you’d bother with this one? – tchrist May 16 at 11:51

¹ downvotes, no answers, unfriendly comments, ecc.

5
  • 1
    That comment in particular did some notable good: she did not understand how to accept answers. It turns out that many new users do not.
    – tchrist Mod
    Dec 30, 2012 at 1:44
  • It seems you're asking in the direction of not wanting people to make such suggestions (to accept some answer). Do you have any reason for not wanting this? It's a fairly innocuous request.
    – Mitch
    Dec 30, 2012 at 4:09
  • Related: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/23321/…
    – Andrew Leach Mod
    Dec 30, 2012 at 9:49
  • @Andrew I'm always trying to make EL&U better, but, while on stackoverflow the related question gained 100 upvotes circa, here I see already 4 downvotes and no answers. Do you have any idea?
    – user19148
    Dec 30, 2012 at 10:04
  • 1
    It would appear that SO don't like reminders and E.SE do. Perhaps you need to make a strong case one way or the other -- Mitch's comment indicates some ambiguity in the question here; Meta seems to invite questions which indicate a definite proposition.
    – Andrew Leach Mod
    Dec 30, 2012 at 10:14

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
4

No, those comments are highly discouraged through the SE network.

In fact, if a moderator sees them, we can delete them without notice (well, this is true for comments in general but especially here). Users can even flag those comments and I think they'll be deleted by pretty much every moderator.

The point is: the accept rate is meaningless. It's often taken as a seriousness-o-meter, but it really doesn't tell you anything else except how much a user accepted. It doesn't tell you why that user didn't accept in the first place, why do we assume it's because the OP is malicious? I have some "suspended" questions myself.

The OP should not be forced to accept, because that acceptance shows that a) it helped the OP and b) it's most likely the correct answer. If the existing answers don't satisfy one or both these points, why should the OP accept? I wouldn't accept myself! For the record, the accept rate is probably going to disappear from the public view, I think it'll still be available in the user profile, though.

So these comments do not serve any actual purpose except nagging the OP.

What you can do instead is tell a newbie how the system works. Like:

Hello xxx, I see you thanked this answerer. If this answer helped you solve the problem, you can accept it clicking on the tick (√) next to it.

That is different, you're helping someone using the tools, not "c'mon accept, c'mon, click on that". Note that if the OP accepts after this comment, you should delete it since it's obsolete.

0

If users don't feel they've received an "acceptable" answer on questions, should they be "punished" in future questions for not accepting an answer on previous questions?

I don't think users should be punished for not accepting an answer. Accepting an answer is rather subjective, and it is done from a single user. More important of that is how the answer is accepted by the community with the votes. A question that is accepted by the OP, but has a negative score gives a clear signal to the future users, and that is not probably "this is the right answer."

Are people really not answering questions because of low accept rates?

I don't think users are not answering a question simply because the OP has a low accept rate. The answer is not helpful just to the OP, but also to future readers, and I think that who answers doesn't do it just to be helpful to the user who asked the question.
There could be users who don't answer a question basing on the accept rate of who asked the question, and that is a decision they can take. In my experience, those users are a limited part of all the users who answer.

You must log in to answer this question.