up vote 8 down vote favorite

The Unanswered tab at the top shows that there are more than 8,000 unanswered questions, it also seems to increase every day. I think it's a bad behavior that this keeps increasing...

Don't understand me wrong, I'm not trying to nitpick but I'm trying to get questions answered...
This tab is the feature I use the most and while it works for new questions, it doesn't work for old ones.

Let's take a look at the oldest question...

Setting up synergy (multi-computer shared input devices) new to mac

The user indicates that his question is answered.
None of the answers have been upvoted and he hasn't accepted a solution either.

This is an example of an unanswered question that is actually answered,
and I believe there are a lot more questions that tend to have the same issue.

This leads me to several problems/suggestions...

  • I could upvote those questions, but there is a voting cap.
    Besides the voting cap this would also prevent me from getting the Electorate badge...

  • Moderators could accept solutions, and 3k and 10k users could vote/flag to accept solutions.

  • Users should have a reminder to improve there question or accept an answer after a time period,
    I suppose there is one but I still see lots of users not accept the final answers.

Other cases:

  • Users that solve their question right after they post it before others do, they leave it unanswered.

I just think we should find a solution for this so the history of the unanswered list gets more useful, then it's easier to go through old questions and to find answers for those and maybe even to get awarded for answering those.

PS: Feel free to add other cases and examples that could fill the unanswered list...

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Just a note @TomWij: mods can't accept answers for the user – Ivo Flipse♦ Aug 11 '10 at 16:08
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Yeah, that's why I added feature-request and the suggestion. – Tom Wijsman Aug 11 '10 at 16:10
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I think you're quite right! This has been a pain for me to see also! Especially the single-question users that only seek a quick answer leave their questions open... The feature request would be a nice addition to the website. imho – BloodPhilia Aug 11 '10 at 16:20
+1, but there/their errors should be fixed – AndrejaKo Aug 11 '10 at 17:51
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1 Answer

up vote 3 down vote

What is it really you have a problem with?

The fact that these questions pop up as unanswered while they obviously are, so they clutter your search for new questions to answer?

Because really the signal to noise ratio isn't that terrible, especially since I believe most of these questions will be fairly old, so it's not a trend or growing problem.

Changing the status of these questions however, will have no influence on their usefulness. If it's answered and someone stumbles on our site with the same problem, the answer will also solve his problem. Regardless of the amount of upvotes or accepted answers.

I do agree it would be nice to filter these questions, to be able to find questions I can answer and/or that are worth trying to effort without having my results cluttered with false positives.

In response to your first comment: it would be better to give you a view or app that helps you find questions that are worth answering, rather than changing some of the fundamental elements of the site.

The only possible solution I could think off would be to allow mods to edit questions that are older than n-months and have x-answers with y-upvotes (you fill in the blanks). Though I really think we shouldn't mess with voting/accepting, as we have bounties and other elements to encourage this behavior

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I think that indeed is the problem. An answered question is spotted in the list almost immediately so you know there's no use in clicking the link and trying to answer it. – BloodPhilia Aug 11 '10 at 16:34
The second alinea (The fact that...) and the last alinea (I do agree...) are indeed the problems. These aren't issue when looking at the newest questions, but they are when looking at the oldest questions. I think it's a bad behavior to just ignore these old questions as they do need an answer too, even if the one who asked the question doesn't need an answer anymore the people who find the question still do... When I look at the last pages, the signal to noise ratio looks terrible to me. This ratio doesn't grow, but the amount of unanswered questions does which feels wrong to me... – Tom Wijsman Aug 11 '10 at 17:06
The view or app would show the same problems as the oldest unanswered questions. I can't fill in the blanks either, it should be one that makes the oldest end of the unanswered questions proper if that at least is a feasible solution. Not to forget that the questions in the middle between new and old might have the same problem. Bounties and other elements don't solve the problem that users don't upvote or accept answers to their questions, which makes it hard for people that want to check and try to answer these older questions... It just seems wrong to just ignore those. – Tom Wijsman Aug 11 '10 at 17:20
@BloodPhilia: Rgegarding the second sentence of your comment: The amount of answers on a question doesn't indicate whether it's answered... This is not useful to me for deciding whether to ignore the link. – Tom Wijsman Aug 11 '10 at 17:36
@Tomwij I know, that's why it's convenient when solved questions are marked as answered... I'm backing you up! =P I was responding to "The fact that these questions pop up as unanswered while they obviously are, so they clutter your search for new questions to answer?" from Ivo. – BloodPhilia Aug 11 '10 at 18:36
Yeah, I misunderstood something there, I thought you talked about the amount of answers to a question because of the presence of the answered question. But again, to clarify my view on the sentence I mentioned earlier and your response (it's probably just a typo you made that confuses me): Answered questions shouldn't be marked as answered in the unanswered when this issue is fixed, they don't belong there as that is the reason of the clutter. – Tom Wijsman Aug 11 '10 at 22:57
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