If a user asks a questions and gets a proper answer and the user becomes inactive forever or deletes his account without accepting the answer, then does any other person has a privilege to accept the answer other than OP? If no, then how to deal with such questions?

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No one1 can accept an answer except the OP of the question.

In general, it doesn't matter since an acceptance only means that the answer helps OP the best.


However, Stack Exchange is a Q&A site for public. It strives to help many people, not only the OP. This is indicated by the voting, which is more important in long-term.

The voting is also used by the system to indicate if a question is "unanswered" or not: accepted/upvoted answers.

1. Except Stack Exchange employees directly accessing and modifying the database, but that's never recommended.

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  • But since this site is in beta stage. It is necessary for increasing the accepted answers. If the users delete and answers get un-ccepted. Then the % of answered questions go down. – hanugm Jan 31 '19 at 4:01
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    @hanugm The "% of answered questions" includes "questions with upvoted answers". This is what SE deemed as "answered". – Andrew T. Jan 31 '19 at 4:03
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    @hanugm We consider accepting answers completely optional. There's no pressure on anyone to accept an answer and we don't judge whether a site should graduate based on accept rate, so don't worry about it too much. – Catija Jan 31 '19 at 5:43

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