We believe that askers of questions should have agency to select the best answer to their question. When reasonable, we will preserve the asker's choice, but we will also make common sense decisions around which answer should be most prominent to visitors.
With that in mind, we'll select answers in the following situations:
- Asker approves: If there's no selected answer but the asker responded positively to one of them (e.g. with a comment), then staff will select that answer if there are no concerns over its quality/correctness.
- Asker abandons: If there's no selected answer and the asker didn't follow up at all, then the mods can choose whichever answer is best for BA in their view. Correct and up-to-date answers will be selected.
- Better answers first: If an answer is selected that's clearly incorrect, outdated, or unhelpful, then the mods will select a better answer (if one exists).
For the second and third condition, a couple of days should pass before an answer is selected, which is enough time for people to point out any problems with it.
You can help get BA selected on more questions:
- If you see an answer that should be selected, flag it.
- If a question author responds positively to an answer, flag their response to make it even more obvious what the flag is for.
- If you answered a question and believe your answer should be selected, flag the question.
- If you see a question that has no answer worthy of a BA, it is a likely candidate for the outdated/unresolved questions thread. You should submit it there.
None of this applies to endless questions.
