tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed ([Redacted])

ESQG comments on "[Redacted]" (1038)

ESQG — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 22:58:04 -0800

Two cents: I like the not-accepting-but-commenting solution too. Though a community-wiki amalgamating answer would give credit from the question, I believe it would not display as an answer on the user's profile. That is another effect like reputation, but more useful if you want to know what a person does; even setting that aside it's nice to easily keep track of one's own answers.

Anton Geraschenko comments on "[Redacted]" (699)

Anton Geraschenko — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 09:12:06 -0800

The software doesn't have to do everything for you. If in addition to upvoting the answers (and perhaps accepting one of them), you leave a comment explicitly saying that you wish you could accept both answers, you can be pretty sure that somebody will give them an extra upvote because of it. Moreover, leaving such a comment completes the social loop in the same way that accepting an answer does.

I can't think of a coherent way to implement multiple acceptances (that doesn't invite abuse). Given that there's such a nice workaround, leaving it alone is the best option. Of course, I'm curious to hear explicit implementation ideas if you've got them.

Harald Hanche-Olsen comments on "[Redacted]" (698)

Harald Hanche-Olsen — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 09:00:46 -0800

Actually, if the asker upvoted the answers instead of accepting them, the loss of reputation should be only 5 points. Or can the asker both upvote and accept, thus awarding 25 points?

Ilya Nikokoshev comments on "[Redacted]" (693)

Ilya Nikokoshev — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:21:17 -0800

The question of reputation is, perhaps unfortunately, binned

Not really, the total loss of reputation is 15 points (you won't get rep for accepting your own answer) and if you're careful to say that your answer amalgamates two other ones, people will vote for others just as they would normally.

Andrew Stacey comments on "[Redacted]" (687)

Andrew Stacey — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:24:21 -0800

This would be nice - make a feature request over on meta.SE about it (first check to see if someone else has requested it) and tell us about it so that those of us with rep there who like the idea can go and vote for it.

In the meantime, one bit of advice I got on this from somewhere (on this forum, I think) was to make a community wiki answer that amalgamated the two helpful answers (with citation) and accept that. The question of reputation is, perhaps unfortunately, binned but at least it's clear to someone reading where the ideas for the correct answer came from and this is, ultimately, more important.

Harry Gindi comments on "[Redacted]" (686)

Harry Gindi — Tue, 01 Dec 2009 23:34:30 -0800