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In the comments section of this question user Praetorian has posted a suitable answer, it solved the askers problem and could be useful for anyone else encountering this issue. However the solution was not his idea, quote: "it was LucDanton that figured that out. He should be the one posting an answer". Thus he doesn't want to take the rep.

With no one willing to take credit for answering this question the question continues to sit on the "unanswered" page, despite having an acceptable answer known. This seems... untidy to me, but I'm not sure if there is anything to be done, or anything that needs to be done. Should I flag it and ask a mod to post a community answer but donate the rep to LucDanton? Try to contact LucDanton about it? Or just ignore it as it's an acceptable situation?

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personal note: there needs to be more of this sort of "problem" :) –  Ian Oct 23 '12 at 17:07
They're both regulars of the C++ chatroom. So I can see how this came about. I've pinged him in chat. –  Mysticial Oct 23 '12 at 17:09
Where did this LucDanton solve the issue? I don't see any comments with his name... –  Alenanno Oct 23 '12 at 17:10
@Alenanno: From Praetorian's comment: "LucDanton mentioned in the C++ lounge". –  Xeo Oct 23 '12 at 17:12
@Xeo Ah thanks, didn't see it. –  Alenanno Oct 23 '12 at 17:12
I think if Luc doesn't post an answer, J.N. should probably just post one himself. But I wouldn't mind my comment being upvoted a few more times either, so it shows up by default :) –  Praetorian Oct 23 '12 at 17:36
Way, way, way back in the day, when SO launched, Joel said "Want to know an easy way to earn reputation? ... Steal all the answers and write one long, complete, detailed answer.... Sit back and earn points while people vote up your comprehensive answer." But, to be fair, a lot of things about that post are obsolete now. –  Pops Oct 23 '12 at 18:51
The question specifically contains "While I know workarounds to solve the problem, I am wondering what I am doing wrong or not understand properly." What I found is, in fact, a workaround and as such not an answer that the OP is looking for. While the OP has expressed interest and gratitude in my finding, they haven't changed that part of the question after I pointed it out. I haven't took the time to properly answer -- that is, to demonstrate that the code is indeed correct and that this is a compiler bug -- as that is far from a simple task. I would gladly upvote anyone who took that time. –  Luc Danton Oct 23 '12 at 19:36
FWIW I left some pointers at the time on what I thought could be the start to document a complete answer. –  Luc Danton Oct 23 '12 at 19:42
"there needs to be more of this sort of "problem"" No...no there doesn't. Really this situation is probably worse than "answer all the things!" behavior, though it is more rare. –  Ben Brocka Oct 23 '12 at 20:33
@Ben: You really think so? I myself was repwhoring at every possibility in the past (meaning I answered every easy-peasy-many-votes question I could get my hands on), but now I stopped and generally just leave a comment so the OP has a quick answer, and let other people garner the rep. I really don't see the problem with this. Sometimes, I just can't be arsed to write a full answer. :) –  Xeo Oct 23 '12 at 21:22
@Xeo rep or not, the point of this site is for answers to be easy to find. Not in chat, not on page 10, not in the comments, but on the first page, in the answers section. Anything else is a disservice to people actually looking for the... answer –  Ben Brocka Oct 23 '12 at 21:42
@Ben Well I was more referring to how nice it is to have people want to give others credit and generally being polite, as opposed to what you find in so many other places. But I definitely agree that this situation was a problem, hence why I posted this question in the hopes that the community could resolve it. –  Ian Oct 24 '12 at 8:38

2 Answers 2

up vote 17 down vote accepted

In the "worst" case, you can just answer it yourself and mark it as a community wiki (right below the edit box on the right side), while giving credit to Luc and/or Praetorian.

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OR STEAL THE REP –  Park Young-Bae Oct 23 '12 at 17:11
actually when I asked this question I didn't have the rep to mark as wiki (or flag :P ). Besides, someone deserves credit for this answer. –  Ian Oct 23 '12 at 17:16
STEAL ALL THE REP –  Alenanno Oct 23 '12 at 17:16
@Ian: You can't mark questions as wiki directly, you can only flag them. And I'm only talking about the answer. You can make a single answer community wiki (as the answerer) without it affecting the question or other answers. And you can just attribute to Luc or Praetorian in the answer, giving them credit that way. Maybe find another answer of them you can upvote? There's always a way. :) Just don't go crazy on the upvoting or you'll trigger the serial-voting-script. –  Xeo Oct 23 '12 at 17:22
I'm pretty sure that neither Luc nor Praetorian are terribly concerned about the reputation and could probably not care less who posts the answer and in what form. A self-answer is certainly a good solution. –  Kerrek SB Oct 23 '12 at 17:28

Here's what I generally do:

  1. Add a comment to the original person who posted a good answer as a comment, saying something like,

"Great response - can you post it as an answer below so others can easily find it?"

  1. Wait a day or so
  2. If they haven't posted it as an answer, post it yourself with attribution.

"Thanks to [USERNAME] for highlighting this solution in the comments."

Don't sweat the "unearned" rep - the goal is to make good answers easily findable, and in this case, you're contributing significantly in that effort.

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Looks like the answer was posted in chat at some point in the past; the user in question never took part in the comments so can't be notified there. –  Shadow Wizard Oct 23 '12 at 20:45
Unfortunately I don't have the rep to comment on stackoverflow yet, and as Sha said, the original answerer never posted on the question so I had no idea how to contact him. But outside of this rare situation I'll definitely be following your suggestion. –  Ian Oct 24 '12 at 8:41

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