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On several SE sites, my accept rate is below 90%. The reason isn't that I just neglect to accept the answer that solved the problem, but rather that no answer was really helpful. My concern is that people will skip answering my question because the low rate would indicate they won't get any rep from me - which isn't true.

Rarely, I will just delete the question altogether if the issue is no longer relevant (improving the general SE signal/noise ratio). But most of the time, I'm still looking for a solution by the time SE drops by accept rate.

I don't have a lot of rep in the first place so it would be relatively expensive for me to offer bounties, but obviously that is one way to attract new answers. However, I'm concerned that the bounties will not go to a working solution for me but simply to any answer. That would be a waste of my hard-earned rep...

Besides offering (wasting?) a bounty; revising the question to make it current/complete/short/interesting;asking for attention in chat -- what can I do?

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This sometimes bothers me too (my accept rate is currently 'only' 88%) but I think you have to understand that most of the time accept rate isn't really important.

I almost never look at people's accept rates, except for when questions like this come up on meta.

I'll leave you with a quote from our parent site; the last sentence is very true in my opinion.

What does the accept rate mean?

  • If the stat doesn’t appear at all, it’s a new user, or someone who rarely asks questions.
  • If you see a low percentage, it’s a user who asks a lot of questions but accepts almost no answers.
  • If you see a high percentage, it’s an engaged user, someone who frequently goes back and interacts with their questions after asking.
  • If you see a middle of the road percentage, it’s an experienced user who understands what accepted answers are for.
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Let me add a little point here, which emphasizes fluteflute's view, and even torbengb's, but that I think it's important to have in mind: getting too mad about getting 'my' accept rate up to 100% is harmful for the community, as you'll be marking some answer as "solutions" for a problem, and that's something that can be really misleading for novice users (me among them): if I don't really fully understand what's being said, I might try the solution provided in that answer, miserably failing in my attempt.

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    Good observation! In a case where no answer is correct I've sometimes added an answer of my own and checked that as solution. It either contains my own best solution, or in te worst case, an explanation why no answer was correct. That can be just as helpful, though of course an actual solution is always best.
    – Torben Gundtofte-Bruun
    Commented Feb 23, 2011 at 6:51
  • I've done so, too.... it may seem "unelegant" to do it, but I'm sure it's better for others searching for information.
    – luri
    Commented Feb 23, 2011 at 19:43

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