How to encourage people to accept an answer?

Question

Recently I answered a question, to which the OP responded:

It works.thanks so much.

But he didn't accept it (or up-vote it either, unless he came back and did that at a later time).

I'm not so worried about the reputation. I'm more worried about the requirements for this site to graduate. How can we boost acceptance rates among new users?

Edit: It just happened again in this question! The OP responded:

Yes, I went with 2 xbees. They are working perfectly! Thanks!

But he didn't accept it either (and unless that original up-vote was his, he didn't upvote me as well)!

Answer 1

Accepting an answer is a nice way to close the loop in site interaction but its much less important than you might think. This is an understandable thing to be confused about, so allow me to explain.

Our engine registers a question as answered when an answer receives upvotes...not when the original poster clicks the “accept” button. Accepting an answer is just a social convention.

The number of accepted answers has very little influence on how well a site is developing. It provides a sense of completion for the one thread you're dealing with, but its really a form of etiquette. I don’t recommend placing too much emphasis on it. :)

Answer 2

A good question, difficult to answer. It applies to all the SE sites although, as you say, it must affect graduation of this one.

Upvoting is harder for a complete newcomer as they have to reach 15 reputation. That of course doesn't stop them accepting. Perhaps allowing someone to upvote an answer to their own question could be permitted earlier.

There are already reminders both to accept answers and not to just post "Thanks". The last thing we want is some great annoying nag screen.

Ideally, and this may be too difficult or expensive to implement, is for the servers to detect a comment of "Thanks" or "it worked" or other keywords and only then to display a suggestion to accept the answer instead.

Answer 3

Mostly people who don't accept answers are people who only come to just ask questions when they are stuck. They come here just to find answers. They probably wont accept answers ever as they don't really care about the SE site. I'm not saying all the people who don't accept answers are like this but I know people who do this just say:"Thanks it worked" and then people afterwards ask further questions about the matter itself and they just don't respond. The only thing to do is to just tell them to accept the answer if it worked for him.

Answer 4

For old questions there could be an accept answer vote. Implementing this shouldn't be costlier than adding close this question.

Answer 5

This is kind of the same scenario when OP answer the question and it continue to pop up as an unanswered question again and again...

And I wish that there would be a way to close it in some way.

Answer 6

Just make a community bulletin so it's something that everyone on the site will see it. I think people just don't know what that star means. Title the bulletin "What to do when your answer is solved" or something like that. Give step by step directions.