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While there is some overlap with the question Should answer acceptance restricted who has asked the question? the background I am going to provide is a bit different.

The are Askers that are unlikely to accept a answer because they are not active members of our community, for example:

  • Anonymous users
  • Users with low reputation and inactive for a considerable time
  • Users that are no longer using the SE

On this case, some users may give a late answer to ignored questions of theses askers and while the answer should be acceptable by the asker it won't be because he no longer cares.

While is true that answer acceptance is a privilege of the asker and should remain this way (since he is the one with most knowledge of the problem and the only one that can assert it was solved by the answer) it would not be reasonable that Moderators or High Ranking members of our community be awarded the right to accept answers to old questions of theses unlikely to come back askers?

By old I don't mean days, I really mean months or a year.

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To answer your question, we must ask: what is the point of the "accepted" answer?

You are asking for more reasons to allow somebody (who that someone is exactly, is to be determined) to anoint an answer as "accepted". But to what end? IE: Why? What is the supposed benefit, of someone beside the OP, choosing an accepted answer?

In general, the "best" answer should be the one with the most votes. The "accepted" answer is really just an opportunity for the asker, to get a special privilege of promoting a specific answer. If the asker does not care to exercise that privilege, then why should we care? What would be the benefit of giving another anointed group a special privilege?

I disagree that we should have a special group, that gets special privileges, to choose special answers..

I think the best way to address the concern in your question, is to encourage community members to VOTE more.

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  • $\begingroup$ Also, reference from help center: "Accepting an answer is not meant to be a definitive and final statement indicating that the question has now been answered perfectly. It simply means that the author received an answer that worked for them personally. Not every user comes back to accept an answer, and of those who do, they might not change the accepted answer even if a newer, better answer comes along later." $\endgroup$
    – Andrew T.
    Commented Apr 12, 2019 at 9:12
  • $\begingroup$ My point is: give closure and improve statistics, giving the proper credit for community effort to answer as many questions as possible $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 12, 2019 at 9:44
  • $\begingroup$ @PedroHenriqueMonforte, Which statistics are you referring to? $\endgroup$
    – Stephen Rauch Mod
    Commented Apr 12, 2019 at 23:54
  • $\begingroup$ Area 51, aren't they influenced by it? $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 12, 2019 at 23:57
  • $\begingroup$ @PedroHenriqueMonforte, OK, so for those stats, a question can be considered answered if it has an answer that is voted to +1 or better. So my contention still stands. Do you want to improve the stats? Then go vote on the answers that deserve it. You have the power, you do not need "Senior" members. reference $\endgroup$
    – Stephen Rauch Mod
    Commented Apr 13, 2019 at 2:16
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for clarifying that, I misunderstood the mechanics of it $\endgroup$ Commented Apr 13, 2019 at 2:22

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