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I have seen other questions that suggest solutions, but nothing open-ended or absolute. What are we supposed to do, if anything, when a question is accepted by the OP in comment, but not officially accepted?

For ex. Protecting a cell, but allowing the drop down list to work

These are related, but not the same: Community vote for “Accepted Answer” (Rep. >= 5000 only) Would it be possible to have a “community accepted” feature?

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The decision to "accept" an answer is up to the question asker. There is not, and never will be, any mechanism by which anybody other than the question asker can select the accepted answer. Voting already allows the community to indicate which answers they think are best.

If a user is new to the site and may not understand how it works, it's OK to politely let them know that they can mark an answer as accepted by clicking the checkbox, if they've already indicated in a comment that a particular answer solved their problem. You should never pressure a person into accepting an answer though.

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    Yep, and a lot of new users seem to ignore the little grayed-out checkmark. They think "it's grayed out, so I can't click it". Not sure if a new user commenting on an answer to their question displays that red dialog recommending them to accept the answer, either, but in many cases they'll just dismiss that without even reading it. Not much we can do about it really. But if an answer is particularly useful, the community's upvotes will far exceed the rep gain of the accept, making it pretty much a moot point.
    – allquixotic
    Jun 10, 2015 at 15:46
  • Is there a notification reminding people to check their question? This is my first question so I don't know. Maybe I should just experiment.
    – rfportilla
    Jun 10, 2015 at 16:24
  • @rfportilla - There is not.
    – Ramhound
    Jun 10, 2015 at 18:58
  • @rfportilla I think there is actually, if the asker upvotes an answer, a box will say "you can also mark this as accepted"
    – nhinkle
    Jun 10, 2015 at 19:54
  • Sure, I appreciate the info. I didn't mean to make this a feature request, but if it doesn't annoy people too much, I think it would be a good idea to send people 1 or 2 notifications to remind them to give credit when it is due. I don't get payment for this so the only satisfaction I get is knowing that someone was helped (and the few rep points that help to make this fun).
    – rfportilla
    Jun 11, 2015 at 16:02

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