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I'm not sure whether to describe this as a question or a suggestion, but...

Every so often a question receives some good answers, but the question author never follows up on those, never approves any of them, because he/she doesn't really care.

Sometimes I look at those, then look at the profile of the person who never followed up, only to find out that person is consistently doing it on all the questions he/she ever asked, never approving any answers, even though they are often right to the point.

Is there any provision on Stack Overflow that would discourage such a behavior? And if there isn't, shouldn't there be one?

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    Does it matter? The question and its answers aren't just for the author; and accepting questions is just sort of a bonus side thing. If it has lasting value and folks keep reading it, gaining something from it, and possibly voting on it accordingly, then what's the issue? (Btw, there used to be accept rate displays, they were removed for 1000 reasons, and some form of "accept" is even part of the auto-nuke comment filter now.)
    – Jason C
    Commented Jun 4, 2017 at 0:38
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    It helps readers confidence, seeing at least one answer as approved/accepted. When none are accepted, makes people think the question stayed in the air, never got the right answer. It also falsely urges new answers to be added.
    – vitaly-t
    Commented Jun 4, 2017 at 0:39
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    Well, that's why the score is displayed, too. :)
    – Jason C
    Commented Jun 4, 2017 at 0:40
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    By the way, tangentially related to your last comment, questions will not display on the unanswered tab if they have positively scored answers, even if they don't have an accepted answer. The system does consider a question with well-received answers "answered" even without the author accepting one.
    – Jason C
    Commented Jun 4, 2017 at 0:45
  • I guess it's all technical versus moral position then :)
    – vitaly-t
    Commented Jun 4, 2017 at 0:49
  • @PolyGeo: The first of those is inapplicable, as it was asked and answered before the feature was actually removed.
    – Nathan Tuggy
    Commented Jun 4, 2017 at 2:35
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    @vitaly-t Also, here's a small list of questions you may find interesting (use the site switcher above the results if you want to run it on a different site than SO). :)
    – Jason C
    Commented Jun 4, 2017 at 3:11
  • With me, the problem was that it is difficult to distinguish a question with highly upvoted answers that don't resolve the problem with barely upvoted answers that do. However, then I get to thinking: What does it matter what other people think? If I have an answer, I need to read the other answers anyway to see if someone else has provided the same workaround or information; if not, then I post my answer, regardless of whether the other answers were well voted or even accepted. That does indeed denigrate the Accept function a tad, of course.
    – can-ned_food
    Commented Jun 4, 2017 at 23:08

1 Answer 1

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An accept rate used to be displayed as a form of shaming such askers - see Let's stop displaying a user's accept rate

Fortunately, SE's community preferences have moved to focussing on question content quality rather than the quality of their askers.

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    Thanks for the answer, though I do not share the Fortunately sentiment.
    – vitaly-t
    Commented Jun 4, 2017 at 2:44

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