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I have seen several examples of the following: Question is posted, one hour later an answer is posted, then the answer gets accepted. I am fine with the questioners prerogative to say thats a good answer. However, it seems to be there is an interesting psychological effect once an answer is accepted. People seem to not put up an answer once one has been accepted.

I wonder if a 24hr delay of accepting an answer would be worth consideration.

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  • +1 I'd go further and remove the "accepted answer" function completely. – Poshpaws Jun 30 '11 at 15:09
  • I sort of have to agree with Poshpaws, because if you have to ask the question, how can you then accept the answer when you didn't know the answer in the first place. It is sort of silly. There have been many examples I have seen of one person asking a real newbie question (which is fine) then 4 newbies give bad answers (not fine, but understandable) and the of OP accepts on of them. Human nature then seems to take over and not many people actually challenge the answers after they get accepted or upvote significantly. Weird human dynamics with this software. – brewchez Jul 6 '11 at 19:23
  • or maybe a minimum vote activation. After so many upvotes (at least one, for example) from other people, the ability to accept is activated. But this has problems as well, I have to admit. – drj Sep 23 '11 at 18:58
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I've personally been trying to wait for at least 50-100 views before accepting an answer. I'm torn between the hope of having a better answer come along and the desire for the "closure" of just accepting what's been put up there. It is possible to change to a different "accepted" answer, though, isn't it?

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    Yes it is possible to change your answer. Although how would we ever get the "Populist" badge? :) – Mark McDonald Mar 13 '11 at 2:51
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I actually think that about 90% of the questions should not be allowed to have an accepted answer. I've accepted answers that, looking back shouldn't have been accepted. I think the point of this site is for the general consensus to bubble up to the top.

On sites like StackOverflow the 'accept' function is fine, if the advice made your code work then accept it. For a site like this most questions aren't so cut and dry. I've seen a lot of people accept answers that have 1 or 0 votes, which leaves questions that might have 10 votes beneath it, going unnoticed if just quickly glancing at the page.

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  • agree to this. often answers, including mine, are conjecture or anectodal. and the validation is often not until the beer is ready for drinking, usually weeks or months later. – mdma Feb 12 '12 at 1:50
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FWIW, there is a delay imposed before an answer can be accepted. It's just not very long. Keep in mind, the longer you make someone wait, the more likely it is they'll just leave (perhaps there's beer to be had...) and never accept anything.

Don't forget, you can always change your accepted answer if a better one comes along later.

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I like the idea for a site like this, but I don't think it can work for two reasons.

  1. As far as I know, we don't have the control to do that on a site by site basis.
  2. I don't see StackExchange ever implementing it across all sites, as the super fast ask - answer - accept works really well on more problem-based sites (like StackOverflow.com).

However, there's a chance they'd be willing to implement that on a per-site basis, in which case I think it's a great idea for sites with general "what is better" or "how do I do x" questions, like we have.

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Speaking from personal experience I have to agree with Baka, to a point. I had accepted answers when I first joined the site and now looking back, with new experience gained, I feel like there may be a better answer out there (even have a few thoughts of my own) but I do not want to put someones answer down by changing it. Maybe some time might not be a bad thing, or even a set number of given answers with a certain rating.

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    Don't feel bad about changing the accepted answer. If both answers were helpful, then up-vote both, and simply accept the one that was most useful to you. – Shog9 Jun 30 '11 at 19:21
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Completely agree with Room3. I'd like to see the "accept answer" functionality removed. I think the real beauty of stackexchange is that a concensus vote is achieved. Good reponses go up and bad ones down. It doesn't make much sense for the person who asked the question to accept the "best" answer. After all, if you ask the question then, unless it is rhetorical, how are you going to know what the "best" answer is .. ?

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  • Huh? It's entirely possible to ask a question which can be answered in a way that is objectively correct or incorrect. – kathryn Jun 30 '11 at 18:26
  • Well, what you say is true in physics or medicine but I don't think it's necessarily going to be the case in homebrewing. But my point was more that, what makes the questioner the most qualified to accept the answer? You might accept the answer that you like, but it doesn't mean it's going to be the correct one. – Poshpaws Jun 30 '11 at 18:51
  • If there's no right answer, it's in real danger of falling under "too subjective." I think the questioner is inherently the most qualified to accept the answer which answered their own question in their eyes. If they accept an answer that is literally false, then it can be edited (and downvotes/comments will probably also reflect the error). – kathryn Jun 30 '11 at 21:46
  • @Kathryn. I'd have to disagree only to the extent that when accepted is checked, there is a tendency for others to infer that it is correct. These are very different things, as I'm certain you are aware of. Posh captures the problem here. Brewing really doesn't for the most part have a single correct answer as there are many variables that come into play, not the least of which is what the desired specific outcome of the brew is intended. – drj Sep 23 '11 at 18:55

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