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Recently I noticed a couple of questions (1, 2) where the author had also posted the solution as part of the question. In both cases I asked the author to post the solution as an answer; one of them did, but in the other case I ended up posting it myself (as community wiki, so as not to wrongly claim any reputation for it). But I'm wondering if there's a better, commonly accepted way of handling these cases (or maybe even an official policy)?

I specifically mean cases where the author doesn't repost the solution themselves, because if I post it myself, I can neither accept it nor even upvote it, which means the answer might not get the visibility it deserves, despite it technically being the accepted solution.

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    I belive this would be handled pretty much the same as comment answers: meta.serverfault.com/questions/1886/… Aug 30, 2012 at 18:45
  • I think you dealt with it perfectly. #1 is a newbie who didn't know they should post their own answer - good that he told us it was solved and how:) #2 now know the drill:) Sep 2, 2012 at 3:05

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But I'm wondering if there's a better, commonly accepted way of handling these cases (or maybe even an official policy)?

No, not really.

If you've asked the OP to post the solution themselves but it turns out to be a case of hit-and-run users who never return — might want to give them a week time though —, just post the answer yourself as Community Wiki.

Of course, also edit out the solution from the original question so it doesn't appear twice.

There is no real problem with that approach. If the OP ever returns they can accept the answer.

The only issue is that questions without positively scored answers count as "unanswered", so ideally you should try and get one upvote on your new answer to get it out of that list. Don't mix this up with the Unanswered tab for questions that have zero answers.

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