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Stack Exchange staff have announced an upcoming change to the way answer acceptance works.

Currently, the original poster of a question can accept one non-deleted answer. This does several things;

  • the question poster receives 2 rep, and the answer poster receives 15 rep;

  • the answer has an added green tick mark below its score and vote buttons;

  • the answer itself is pinned to the top of the list of answers, regardless of sort variable.

This change will affect the last of these behaviours, removing the "pin to top".

Staff have indicated this may be configurable per site - each individual site can have this behaviour turned off or left on (with the default setting yet to be determined by consensus and research).

Please indicate by voting on the answers below, which setting you would prefer.

Downvotes will be ignored for this purpose, as they add no useful information. Just upvote one, or both or neither. Feedback is being collected on September 19th. I realize I'm a bit late to this Meta post but the vote's can still be used to determine the functionality after the 19th. In about two-weeks time this post will be updated and locked to preserve results.

Results

Feedback was collated on October 3rd, giving sixteen days to make a decision. This post has been locked to preserve results.

Our consensus is in favour of removing the "pin to top" behaviour for accepted answers.

Option Votes
Remove 5
Keep 3

Shamelessly stolen from Sports.SE.

6
  • 2
    I've given it all of 30 seconds of thought, and I'm for unpinning the accepted answer. A lot of times, the accepted answer is quite specific, and usually "the words I wanna hear" to the asker, whereas other answers are more generalized and based in science, but end up below the answer that sugarcoats the process. Since more people will upvote the latter, and the latter will also be useful to more people, it's natural that it should float to the top.
    – Alec Mod
    Commented Sep 17, 2021 at 8:42
  • 1
    I think 5/3 is too close of a call to change the way the site works. The green checkmark on one of the options, also may unintentionally cause further bias.
    – Nike Dattani
    Commented Oct 3, 2021 at 22:18
  • @NikeDattani, I agree 5/3 is close but there was no margins set out. Had it been 3/4 it would've stayed pinned. If the community decides they want the change reverted that can be brought up in a future post? I'll remove the check-mark to avoid bias, but for the intention of this post, the tally is complete.
    – C. Lange Mod
    Commented Oct 3, 2021 at 22:45
  • 1
    This has been added to the Community Team's backlog and we'll update you once someone picks it up and evaluates your request.
    – JNat StaffMod
    Commented Oct 6, 2021 at 17:44
  • 2
    Hey! I've just changed the site setting. The accepted answer is unpinned now.
    – Nicolas Chabanovsky StaffMod
    Commented Nov 24, 2021 at 15:48
  • Thanks @NicolasChabanovsky! I guess it's gonna take a while to see a noticeable change in dynamics, but hey... "No real impact" is data too.
    – Alec Mod
    Commented Nov 26, 2021 at 4:36

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
5

Remove the "pin to top" behaviour.

I want this behaviour to be removed. An accepted answer should be sorted in the same way as all answers.

2
  • Oct 3, 2021 = +4, -0 votes. +5, if you include my vote.
    – C. Lange Mod
    Commented Oct 3, 2021 at 21:21
  • I like this. We have some answers (such as self answers) that are not really great having them pinned. It's a small change, but I like this idea.
    – JohnP Mod
    Commented Oct 6, 2021 at 16:02
5

Keep the "pin to top" behaviour.

I want this behaviour to be kept. An accepted answer should be placed at the top of the list.

1
  • Oct 3, 2021 = +3, -0 votes.
    – C. Lange Mod
    Commented Oct 3, 2021 at 21:21

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