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Just a moment ago I came across this question Ubuntu 18.04, complex network configuration with Netplan. OP solved his problem on his own and added that in the question body. However, Thomas Ward added that as an answer in the answer section and made it community wiki (which I appreciate as a I'm not that old contributor and saw that first time) and I edited the question to delete things like Solved and answer in the question body.

So, here's the question which arises in my mind. Sometimes it may happen that OP solves the problem on his own and write that in comment or question body. If I motivate him to write that as an answer in answer section, he might write that. But the problem arises when OP solves problem the same day and writes the solution as an answer. Due to the policy of Stack Exchange he can't accept his answer before 48 hours of posting the question. Also, once the problem is solved some contributors not even bother to at least log in to the site. While on the other hand if some other contributor (like Thomas Ward) write that as an answer and made that as community wiki (to avoid reputation change), OP can accept that answer on the same day. So which one is better since I think questions with accepted answers are far better?

Also, day before yesterday I came across a question (I don't exactly remember) seemed to be an exact duplicate of an existing question. But the problem was that the question had an answer from OP but it was neither upvoted nor accepted. Due to this I wasn't able to flag that question. In that scenario what should be done? Is reverse of this a solution?

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    I'm not sure what you mean with your last paragraph, but that seems like a completely separate issue. Please don't ask multiple questions in a single post.
    – terdon Mod
    Commented Dec 5, 2018 at 20:44
  • In my opinion, in some cases these two concerns are inter-related. Let me explain with an example. This and this are two separate questions answered by me. Answers of both the questions haven't got any upvote nor they are accepted. Also, these two questions can be considered as duplicate of one another. I guess. But if I try to flag either of them I get this error. I think this is because I have less reputation thus less access to moderation tools. Hope I'm clear now.
    – Kulfy
    Commented Dec 5, 2018 at 21:17
  • By reverse I meant suppose there are two questions. One was asked a month ago and other just now. The latter one seemed to be a exact duplicate of the earlier but the earlier questions answer haven't got any upvote nor accepted. But at a later stage it is realised that the new questions answer has an accepted answer, then should I flag the earlier as the duplicate of latter? Is the wait worthy?
    – Kulfy
    Commented Dec 5, 2018 at 21:23
  • Oh, the age of the post is completely irrelevant. Always flag the less good post as a duplicate of the better one. So if the newer one has better answers (or even is a better question) then flag the old one as a dupe of the new one.
    – terdon Mod
    Commented Dec 5, 2018 at 21:25
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    By the way, I closed the two questions you linked to since they were both off topic. Your main point is very valid though: if you find a duplicate but you can't close because there are no upvoted answers, then flag it for mod attention and we'll deal with it.
    – terdon Mod
    Commented Dec 5, 2018 at 21:28
  • For more (and more, and more) details, see How should duplicate questions be handled?
    – terdon Mod
    Commented Dec 5, 2018 at 21:29
  • @terdon That's indeed a very long post. By the way thanks :-)
    – Kulfy
    Commented Dec 7, 2018 at 8:03

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I don't really see a problem here. An accepted answer just means the OP chose that answer as the best. But as far as the system is concerned, a question is counted as answered if it has at least one answer with a positive score. So it really makes no difference if a question has an accepted answer or not.

In fact, very often the OP accepts a bad answer or, at least, not the best one. But that's fine: accepting an answer only shows the OP's personal preference. An answer's score is a far better indication of its usefulness than whether or not it was accepted.

So don't worry about it. Yes, asking the OP to post as an answer is great, do that! But if they don't, also feel free to post the answer yourself.

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  • But I think accepting an answer and upvoting are two different scenarios. Like I posted in comment if an answer has no upvotes I can't flag other question as a duplicate of the earlier question and in my opinion if a question has only one answer which works but no upvotes, new users might consider it as a low quality answers. I guess.
    – Kulfy
    Commented Dec 5, 2018 at 21:20
  • @Kulfy yes, those are fair points, but an upvote has the same effect as an accept here: if the question has an upvoted answer, then it is OK as a duplicate target. So there's no need for the accept.
    – terdon Mod
    Commented Dec 5, 2018 at 21:24

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