What is meta? ×


share|improve this question
@Jeff: You added the status-completed tag to this question and removed it afterwards. Does this mean it will be implemented but it is not yet completed? –  Daniel Hilgarth Sep 14 '11 at 5:45
@Jeff, a pending feature from 2009? –  Abdel Olakara Sep 14 '11 at 8:53
I notice too. I'm most curious because we're missing out on things to learn (apparently, there have been better answers, and it's only fair that we can learn from them too, even if we didn't ask the question initially? –  sehe Sep 18 '11 at 19:37
add comment

4 Answers

up vote 142 down vote

Yes please!

I asked for this a while on UserVoice - I'd be very much in favour of this. It's weird to see your rep drop by 15 and have no idea why. It also means there's an answer with more information in than mine, which means I may be able to learn something from it :)

share|improve this answer
You even notice that you lose 15 points? You are the Scrooge McDuck of StackOverflow (Just kidding, I understand what you say) –  splattne Jul 2 '09 at 7:44
Just as long as you don't touch his lucky dime. –  toast Jul 7 '09 at 4:03
+1 for "It also means there's an answer with more information in than mine, which means I may be able to learn something from it :)" –  WendiKidd Jul 29 '12 at 22:11
add comment

Starting with the next build, this will show in your reputation history, shown as a -15 on the day it occurs (except if it's re-accepted in the same day)

share|improve this answer
It still isnt happening. :( –  thefourtheye Nov 7 '13 at 4:42
@thefourtheye it's working properly - unaccept/reaccept or the reverse on the same day are hidden intentionally. We have many, many instances of people voting/unvoting in a loop and don't want to show that spam on the rep history list. –  Nick Craver Nov 13 '13 at 11:12
It never happened to me that people accepting and unaccepting on different days. Lets see if I get notifications for it when it happens to me. Thanks :) –  thefourtheye Nov 13 '13 at 11:16
add comment

I've seen this happen to me a few times where the OP unaccepted my answer and wrote his/her own very specific answer and accepted that. Perhaps this happened because my answers tend to generalize the problem, sometimes abstracting the examples, reducing the snippet, etc. This is my way of looking at the "bigger picture" and try to write an answer that is most useful to everyone, instead of OP's specific problem, but like I said this sometimes backfires with unacceptance (or no acceptance to begin with).

I've also seen question askers that reviewed all the answers received, and compiled it into one super-duper awesome answer and accepted that. I actually don't mind losing acceptances this way, because I believe we want to encourage this behavior from ANYONE. Even better if we get the original question asker to do this, I think.

I've also been tempted to do this with my own questions (i.e. answering my own question with super-duper compilation of everyone's), but I don't think I've ever unaccepted an answer because I posted my own, for fear of repercussions etc. I usually still post my answer anyway, because I think we want the content.

If my answer ever gets more votes than the answer I've previously accepted, then I may consider accepting my own. This hasn't really happened yet.

share|improve this answer
add comment

As this is apparently somewhere between difficult and unfeasible, maybe we can change people's ethos so that the emphasis is on the community to let people know why their answer is no longer worthy of being accepted.

Maybe de-selecting an accepted answer and not posting a comment to the user who provided the answer could carry a rep penalty itself if the answer has been accepted for a certain length of time. Or at least a prompt to suggest that a comment would be courteous.

share|improve this answer
add comment

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .