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This is the partner to my other question, concerning specifically Meta Ask Ubuntu. Because accepts may have a somewhat different meaning or purpose on meta I am posting this question to gather feedback separately.

Community manager Nicholas Chabanovsky has posted this on Meta Stack Exchange:

Unpinning the accepted answer from the top of the list of answers.

On Stack Overflow, apparently, answers are now by default sorted by score, with the accepted answer appearing wherever its score places it, instead of being pinned to the top.

The linked question asks whether we would like to have the same behaviour on our site, or stick with the old way of having the accepted answer appear at the top of the list regardless of its score (or, I guess, something else entirely).

What are your thoughts on this, specifically on meta?


I have posted feedback on this discussion in answer to Nicholas Chabanovsky's question.

2 Answers 2

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Accepts can have a different function on meta, highlighting a definitive statement from SE staff or indicating what line of action was actually taken at the conclusion of a discussion. I talked about the difference between the meaning of accepts on main vs. meta here in chat.

In the case of questions the accept often has a similar meaning to on the main site. However, community knowledge about the site itself is much more widespread and comprehensive than knowledge about the myriad Ubuntu-related things that can be asked about on the site, so any important errors are likely to be swiftly corrected.

Since it's very likely to be the most useful one, having the accepted answer pinned to the top seems like a good idea on meta.

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  • Zanna, please change the link to this: chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/message/58317465#58317465 such that it is more mobile-friendly. Sep 11, 2021 at 18:17
  • I agree that it would be useful to have pinned posts on Meta to highlight the decision of staff or so on. But the way it works now is that the original poster is the only one with the ability to pin an answer, and they can pin an answer for any reason at all. If they want to, they could pin the least useful answer. That's why I don't think we should pin accepted answers in Meta.
    – Flimm
    Oct 15, 2021 at 13:53
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I don't think that the person who create the question post should be the only person with the ability to pin an answer, just because they happened to be the first person to ask the question.

It would make much more sense to let the community decide which answer is top (by voting), or to give the ability of pinning answers in Meta only to moderators and staff.

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