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It's pretty simple really. The accepted answer was chosen by a single person. Not only might it not be good, it's entirely possible that it's not even right. St
by mbostleman 5y ago
It's pretty simple really. The accepted answer was chosen by a single person. Not only might it not be good, it's entirely possible that it's not even right. Statistically the one with the most upvotes will inevitably not only be the best, but is also the most likely to be right. And hopefully it can even self-adjust over time. The whole idea of an OP "accepted" answer is a sketchy feature from the start.
- dgritsko 5y ago> The whole idea of an OP "accepted" answer is a sketchy feature from the start. I think that's highly dependent on the type of question being asked. For questions where a person had a specific problem, accepting the answer was a way to indicate "yes, this fixed my problem" - and by definition, only the OP can decide that. Now that doesn't quite fit for "best practice" questions where the answers might evolve over time (hence the change being discussed here), but the "accept" mechanism doesn't discriminate.
- mbostleman 5y agoYes, good point. And I think that goes back to how one views SO. I've always tried to view it less as a question answer service (with the answer being the end goal) than an encyclopedia that gets written through the process of questions and answers (with the encyclopedia as the end goal).