I found a few questions, e.g. this one, where the OP doesn't exist anymore, but the question is still not answered. I understand that nothing like "community accepting" the question is acceptable if the OP exists and there is a chance that he'll accept the answer - but how about these questions? What can/should be done with them? And possibly, if some statistics are available - how many questions without an accepted answer and without existing OP are on SO?

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  • I'm sure that's a dupe. – Deduplicator Apr 24 '14 at 21:48

No, these cannot ever have an accepted answer (barring a dev manually changing the database). That's a big part of why answers are sorted by votes by default - the best answers as determined by the community float to the top. As for statistics, you could probably pull it out of SEDE.

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    I think the OP asks how the system should work and not how it actually works ATM. – Karoly Horvath Apr 24 '14 at 21:47
  • actually sometimes an accepted answer have less votes than other answers but still be raised to top – phuclv May 27 '14 at 4:32
  • Would this rule (that only the OP can mark as accepted) also apply for this question, stackoverflow.com/questions/10111747/… ? There's only one answer, no activity in over a year, and the OP hasn't been online in over a year, but that answer clearly solved his problem by the comments. – TMH Jun 4 '14 at 13:58
  • @TomHart Yes, in all cases the OP has to accept; if the OP is deleted (or unregistered and loses the cookie it's just impossible for that to happen. If there's still a user, it's possible for them to come back and accept. – Kevin Jun 4 '14 at 16:21

Acceptance isn't really a requirement for SO. Looking at the upvotes, you can already clearly see what the best answer is and since answers are ordered by votes by default, you get a good view of the better answers to the question. There is no need for it to be accepted.

As for the statistics: http://data.stackexchange.com/stackoverflow/revision/185628/239820/not-accepted-answers (46676 atm)

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  • The accept flag usually signals that the answer worked in practice. So though there's no strict need for it, it certainly has some value. – Karoly Horvath Apr 24 '14 at 21:45

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