Rule proposal: comments asking for accepts and votes shall no longer be allowed - Meta Stack Overflow Stack Overflow Loading… Back to Stack Overflow Return to the main site Tour Start here for a quick overview of the site Help Center Detailed answers to any questions you might have What's Meta? How Meta is different from the main site About Us Learn more about Stack Overflow the company Business Learn more about our products current community Stack Overflow help chat Meta Stack Overflow your communities Sign up or log in to customize your list. more stack exchange communities company blog Log in Sign up Home Public Questions Tags Users Teams Stack Overflow for Teams – Start collaborating and sharing organizational knowledge. Create a free Team Why Teams? Teams Create free Team Teams Q&A for work Connect and share knowledge within a single location that is structured and easy to search. Learn more about Teams Rule proposal: comments asking for accepts and votes shall no longer be allowed Ask Question Asked 4 months ago Modified 3 months ago Viewed 4k times -137 6 Moderator Note: We appreciate the community's feedback on this and are not moving forward with this rule as currently proposed. We still recommend not leaving these comments, and moderators will delete them if seen or flagged (which has always been the case). We'll get to the rule stuff in a moment, but we, the moderator team, need to start off with an apology. We've been wrestling with this issue for some time. We've modified some existing Meta posts to match our policy shift, but we never really made that obvious to the community at large. We've been enforcing it without that clear communication and it's frustrated some users who were genuinely unaware. To that end, we're sorry. This is an attempt to clarify what we're wanting to do and why. Please take this as an opportunity to understand our aims and add input on this proposed policy change. What we're trying to change Our guidance isn't terribly different from this post by Martijn in 2015 You have two options: Flag the comments as No longer needed; badgering for votes, bounties and accepts is not what comments are meant for. If there is a widespread pattern, flag one of posts by the user illustrating the problem, and explain the pattern in a in need of moderator intervention message. What changed was we removed this section below that * Teaching new users how accepting works is fine. If you posted an answer, the user gives you a hearty thanks! comment and it turns out they are pretty new and never accepted an answer before, feel free to show them how accepting works. Personally I use Glad to have been of help! Feel free to accept my answer if you feel it was useful to you. :-) Why we're wanting to change it Such comments are noise This part really hasn't changed. Stack Overflow continues to grow in moderation needs, and the less noise we can have generated, the better. Last year moderators removed over 400,000 comments. While some of that includes bulk removals and moving comments to chat, it doesn't account for all of it. All those comments must be reviewed by a human, and that number doesn't account for comment flags reviewed and declined. Voting on and accepting answers are, and always have been, optional We don't want to see users pressured into doing either. Having users call attention to it when they've made a post brings a sense of pressure to do it, regardless of the merits. The system now guides users in this area The system provides suitable guidance to new users in terms of voting and accepting answers. Martijn's original post was made when such guidance didn't really exist. Both the tour and tooltips cover this Accepted answers are not as important anymore for visibility As of Sept 2021, accepted answers are no longer pinned. While having the green checkmark helps, it is no longer the main metric for how useful the community sees an answer (as this comic once noted). What we would look for Comments that are Asking for upvotes Asking for accepts Linking to the Help center page about the subject, Meta.SE, or any other resource describing voting and accepts Any other roundabout way of implying that the user should somehow reward the post with voting or an accept How enforcement would work We generally will overlook the odd mention here or there by new users. They routinely add comments for us to clean up anyways ("Thanks!", "This works!", "+1", etc.). We tend to notice veteran users, however, and will hand out warnings first. Our hope is to not have any suspensions, save the routine violators who insist on continuing to remind others to vote or accept. Once the community has discussed this, we hope to have another formal post with a final rule that is placed into faq, as we did for this prior (now obsolete) rule. Discussion is welcome. discussion status-declined comments rules Share Follow edited May 20 at 14:57 khelwood 53k33 gold badges1717 silver badges2727 bronze badges asked May 18 at 23:40 MachavityModMachavity 30.1k3333 gold badges245245 silver badges332332 bronze badges 91 91 This seems way too draconian. You're prioritizing the clueless newbs over the seasoned users who are trying to make the site better. – Mark Ransom May 19 at 3:52 31 In what way is any "prioritization" occurring, @Mark? Our primary goal here is to reduce the amount of noisy comments that waste everyone's time: they waste the time of users who have to post them, they waste the time of everyone who looks at the Q&A and stumbles over them instead of useful, relevant content, and they waste the time of flaggers and/or moderators who have to delete them. There is no reason to, and multiple disadvantages entailed in, sharing this kind of information via comments. It is better provided as just-in-time help by the system, which it already is, obsoleting comments. – Cody Gray Mod May 19 at 4:25 41 @CodyGray if that system were truly obsoleting the comments we wouldn't be having this discussion. – Mark Ransom May 19 at 4:33 83 I answer a lot of newbie questions who do not know how the site works. Many do not know about the acceptance mark. If it is clear from our discussion in comments that an answer has solved/answered their question, then I drop them a non-pressuring comment to help educate them on the process of accepting an answer if they want to. I 10+ years, I've never seen any objection and have successfully educated probably more than 1000 newbie users on that process that the site does NOT properly communicate to them. I find it ridiculous that you're trying to shut that down. – jfriend00 May 19 at 5:19 51 For me answering questions are a game to try to "win" the best answer contest. I try to go above and beyond in my explanation and examples to win that contest. If you're now saying that you don't even care about that contest, then that will certainly remove some of my enjoyment or motivation for producing great answers (11,000+ answers so far). If you're removing that "game" element of the site as having any priority at all, then I think this is the beginning of the decline of Stackoverflow. Most questions aren't high traffic and the main bonus for answering them is acceptance.' – jfriend00 May 19 at 5:22 16 We absolutely do not care about the contest. What we care about is the content. Going above and beyond to produce a high-quality answer should be done because you, too, care about the content, and, in general, our overarching goal of creating a high-quality knowledge-base style resource for people with questions about programming. If the contest happens to produce high-quality content, I guess that's good. But if the contest is getting in the way and producing noise, then that's bad. Even if you want to treat this as a contest/game, then let's say that such comments are cheating. – Cody Gray Mod May 19 at 5:37 19 It doesn't feel much like a policy change discussion so much as it feels like a policy change announcement. Whatever the new rule is, just please make it clear where the line is. – Drew Reese May 19 at 5:44 35 @CodyGray - Hmm, you don't care about the contest. Then you're shooting yourselves in the foot for one of the things that makes this place work. I guess I really ought to consider taking my services elsewhere. But, then nobody here on Meta seems to care what one a top 50 reputation user thinks. – jfriend00 May 19 at 6:46 82 @CodyGray - Well, if you don't care about the contest, but do care about the content, then somehow you must think that the contest has nothing at all to do with the creation of content. If you really think that, then why not just get rid of reputation entirely. If the contest is meaningless and useless, then reputation must therefore also be meaningless. You're throwing the baby out with the bath water here. The contest is a means to an end. Sure, the content is the end game, but the contest is part of how you get good content. – jfriend00 May 19 at 6:55 23 That's never been allowed, @RobC. It's noise subject for removal according to the editing guidelines. – Oleg Valter is with Ukraine May 19 at 7:10 25 The whole "noise" argument has never made much sense to me. The comments aren't what you look at when you're actually looking for the Answer. They are just an extra. And they already get automatically filtered by default if there are very many of them. It seems to me that, if the mods want less work with comments, it would make more sense to just deprioritize deleting comments and let the built in system handle it when it hides them. – trlkly May 19 at 11:52 15 @CodyGray Also, we know they're not being bullied because the comments do not have bullying language or otherwise attempt to force someone to act. Treating politely worded comments as possible bullying minimizes actual bullying. – trlkly May 19 at 12:25 23 This is the wrong decision; maybe one day when the system actually does a good job at educating users on this and enforcing it automatically, we can implement such a rule. But until then, it's nuking a problem from orbit when only a framing hammer is needed. – TylerH May 19 at 16:38 35 @CodyGray "That's so horribly wrong that I don't even know where to begin" You may view that as deplorable behavior, and that's fine, but you don't have the right to control the motivations of other users; people have a right to answer or not answer for whatever reasons they want; it is a volunteer effort. If I don't want to answer someone's question because they never accept answers... that's perfectly fine; it's not violating any rule of the site or network. – TylerH May 19 at 16:45 26 Out of curiosity, do we have any testimonies to the effects of this pressure? It's interesting that this question came up when it did; I just got a message from the moderators a few weeks ago asking me not to post such comments. The message said (word-for-word, emphasis mine) "The reality is, no matter how politely and neutrally you phrase the comment, if you have also posted an answer to the question, the receiving user is extremely likely to interpret that comment as pressuring them to accept your answer." Where does that "extremely likely" come from? Again, just curious. – Sylvester Kruin May 19 at 17:24 | Show 76 more comments 25 Answers 25 Sorted by: Reset to default Highest score (default) Date modified (newest first) Date created (oldest first) 214 There are a ton of new users who leave comments like "thanks, that worked!" on the answer to their question without accepting it. That's exactly what accepting an answer is supposed to be for. In cases like these, it's abundantly clear that the asker doesn't realize this. I don't think a policy of "don't tell new users how the site is supposed to work" is a good one. Share Follow edited May 19 at 15:36 user17242583 answered May 19 at 1:21 Joseph Sible-Reinstate MonicaJoseph Sible-Reinstate Monica 42.5k11 gold badge88 silver badges1818 bronze badges 34 52 @CodyGray "There are already plenty of inducements to users accepting an answer, including rep gain." Yes, but a lot of people don't know about this. – Joseph Sible-Reinstate Monica May 19 at 5:13 95 @CodyGray - In context, a comment to the tune of "that worked" nearly always means the OP is no longer seeking additional advice on the topic and is moving on to their next issue. If they still have issues, the comment will have a "but" in it or will raise some other aspect of the question. The bar for a checkmark is not "the best possible answer to the question". In theory no single answer here on stackoverflow ever meets that criteria as every single answer could theoretically be improved somehow. So, that's a ridiculous bar for an acceptance. – jfriend00 May 19 at 5:27 7 @CodyGray - A more appropriate bar for acceptance is that the answer fully explains a solution to the question (thus no future guidance is thought to be needed) and is the best of any answers offered so far. If an even better answer arrives later, the acceptance can be moved to that new answer if appropriate. – jfriend00 May 19 at 5:29 6 How do you know that people don't know about this? You are assuming that because after you leave a comment telling them to accept an answer, they go ahead and do so. That doesn't prove that they didn't know about the benefits or inducements for accepting. It could equally well mean that they felt pressured by your comment into accepting an answer. That's not a positive outcome, and you can't disentangle that merely by looking at results. The user may well have made a tenuous decision not to accept an answer after the system told them they could do so, but didn't feel like defending it. – Cody Gray Mod May 19 at 5:40 48 @CodyGray - I don't ever "tell" someone to accept an answer. You used that word, not me. I explain the process and advise that if they want to indicate to the community that their question has been answered, they can do so by clicking the checkmark to the left of the answer that helped them the most. And, in addition, as one who provides a lot of answers, I appreciate knowing if the OP thinks their question has been answered or not. So, I find the acceptance indicator a useful indicator on questions I haven't yet responded to. I find it distressing, you want to de-emphasize or remove it – jfriend00 May 19 at 7:32 26 @CodyGray - Does it matter to you at all that the more time I spend on Meta, the less time I want to spend on SO. Meta is hugely discouraging. I guess I'm reminded why I should stop visiting Meta. All it does is convince me that SO is being run by curators who have no sense of what made it successful in the first place and how it attracts people to write questions and how you attract, incent and reward people for writing great answers. The sense here is that curation is far, far more important than anything related to attracting questioners or encouraging answerers. – jfriend00 May 19 at 7:40 5 @jfriend00 "I don't ever 'tell' someone to accept an answer." Really? Because it seems like you did at least once (image for posterity), and after going through your commenting history, this does not look anything at all like an isolated incident. In fact, you tell people to accept an answer regularly, and it is not uncommon for that to be your own answer. I merely cherry-picked one example. This is precisely the sort of comments that shouldn't be posted. – Cody Gray Mod May 19 at 7:54 8 You're right about Meta being a place that is focused on content curation and improving the site. You're incorrect about these people forgetting what made SO successful in the first place. In fact, most of us who participate here are the people who made SO successful in the first place, and we accomplished it by posting high-quality content with extreme focus on curation. Yahoo Answers did the opposite; you can see how that turned out. We have plenty of people who write questions; we need spend no effort/focus on attracting more. Nor do we need more rewards. We need more quality and clean-up – Cody Gray Mod May 19 at 8:02 43 @CodyGray - So you're trying to drop dirt from 7 years ago to prove a point? That isn't even "telling", it's asking. That's also not wording I use any more. But, you've just convinced me to abandon any future visits to Meta and perhaps even abandon my free contributions on SO. Once again, I wonder if the people who actually work for the company know who's minding the store here on Meta because it's really unhealthy for the long term health of SO. Bye. – jfriend00 May 19 at 8:12 16 I would prefer getting rid of the acceptance mark alltogether. I'd rather educate users to upvote and downvote accordingly. What I've seen to often: a new user asked to accept by the first person who answered and accepting because falsely believing it to mean "thanks" and ignoring all following answers, and other new users interpreting the acceptance mark as a sign of the most correct answer. It's frustrating and it doesn't help keeping quality up. – Modus Tollens May 19 at 9:15 8 @CodyGray"I'd rather have new users not accepting answers than new users feeling bullied into accepting wrong/incomplete answers." But no users should feel bullied into doing anything on the site. Reviewing, voting, commenting,... whatever. If users are feeling bullied, then that is a completely separate problem than comments suggesting that people upvote or accept an answer (using tools that the user may not even know are available). – ouflak May 19 at 9:50 10 @CodyGray, Are you wanting to restrict the tone of the such requests, or the requests themselves? I'm wary that a polite positive request that can help a user take part in the site in a way that they (and perhaps all of us) would appreciate would become automatically interpreted as 'online bullying'. – ouflak May 19 at 9:50 29 @CodeGray Characterizing comments made in good faith as bullying doesn't seem fair. I've experienced a poster bullying me about accepting their answer, and it was not like any of these more usual, neutrally worded comments. It involved them telling me that my criteria was wrong. I also frankly see any Question where there is no accepted Answer as an indication that the Answers aren't all that good, so I do think it is a valid thing to pursue. – trlkly May 19 at 11:44 10 @KevinB Then the individuals who are overdoing it should be addressed directly, rather than threatening everyone over it. – jpmc26 May 19 at 19:42 13 There is a difference between "accept this answer"" and please consider accepting this answer." In a lowish volume tag combination, giving an answer in a niche topic, you can often see a "thanks this worked" comment from OP, no votes at all, and eventually, IIRC, this content then ages away. Hardly contributes to site quality. Or would these become an edge case because it is a low volume? It's demoralizing, to some extent, to write detailed explanations, and introduce relatively rarely used, but more up-to-date techniques for solving problems, to see those answers rot away. – QHarr May 19 at 20:54 | Show 19 more comments 177 We should have the system detect when a (new) user uses "Thanks" or "Thank you" in the comments, and show them a pop-up telling them to upvote/accept instead of thanking. A bit like what happens when we include +1 in the comments. Share Follow answered May 19 at 3:13 Ayxan HaqverdiliAyxan Haqverdili 24.7k11 gold badge55 silver badges88 bronze badges 13 34 Indeed, several of the moderators think this is a good idea, after a similar solution was proposed internally a few days ago. We are currently discussing with staff about the possibility of implementing such a feature, almost exactly as you describe. The jury is still out regarding whether attempts to post these types of "thanks" comments should be blocked outright (as with "+1" comments, but with a far more helpful message), or whether they will just lead to a warning that can be bypassed if the poster insists. Probably, block vs. warning will be based on the length of the comment. – Cody Gray Mod May 19 at 4:27 6 Also worth noting that, as proposed to the CMs, a "far more helpful message" includes guidance to vote instead of commenting, in both the block and warning messages. – Zoe stands with Ukraine Mod May 19 at 7:33 11 This, or something very much like it, is a necessary requirement before enforcing the rule described in the question above. If the system automatically coached new users about how the site works when they appear not to understand, I'd have no issues with the rule. On the tags I frequent, tons of users ask questions without having taken the tour. – Chris May 19 at 12:04 1 I think exactly what @Chris says. With this rule you're trying to fix the consequences instead of solving the actual problem causing them: reminding askers to reward answerers for their help. And this solution should help to solve both problems, however there are still some askers who just leave without any "thanks". – EvgenKo423 May 19 at 12:34 "We should have the system detect when a (new) user uses "Thanks" or "Thank you" in the comments" the system deletes those with one single flag. That's why while you can find them if you look for them, you rarely see them. We should add the comments about "accept/up vote" to that list. – Braiam May 19 at 13:40 2 More than this. Instead of a reminder to accept, the accept checkbox should automatically be clicked. Because how do you know an OP will see or heed the reminder? – user17242583 May 19 at 14:50 6 @richardec again, accepting is optional and therefore not required. Forcing accepts violates that principle. Also problematic for all parties involved if subjected to false positives (which will happen). – Zoe stands with Ukraine Mod May 19 at 20:23 Indeed, it shouldn't be rocket science to implement some script blocking such comments. "if (comment.length<n AND comment.contains("thanks") then { block_comment(); inform_user_how_to_use_SO(); }". – Lundin May 20 at 12:54 @Lundin there is already something of the sort, but it just allows you to remove the comment with a single flag. – Braiam May 20 at 14:53 In favor. Are you going to turn this into a [feature-request] post? – Ann Zen May 20 at 19:13 1 @AnnZen One of the moderators said they are already working on this. What benefit would a separate post provide for us? – Ayxan Haqverdili May 21 at 4:44 2 We are, in fact, planning a formal feature request for this, since it (A) is something the mod team definitely still wants, and (B) seems to be something that the majority of the community supports. too. We're going to wait a few days before posting it. But the purpose of posting will be two-fold: (A) to get community buy-in, suggestions, etc., and (B) to create official documentation for and help push the feature to be implemented. Look for it soon-ish. :-) – Cody Gray Mod May 21 at 5:26 1 @CodyGray Horse before cart, aye. – Drew Reese May 21 at 7:29 Add a comment | 101 We really should use common sense with this rather than enforcing a blind rule. There's a difference between someone "begging" for votes or pressuring users into voting/accepting and someone trying to merely educate new users about the tools that the site provides for them to use instead of "thanks" comments or the like. If someone tries to do that using language that doesn't include any hint of pressure and does so regardless of who the owner of the answer is (i.e., doesn't have a pattern of posting such comments on their own answers, especially), then I honestly believe it's okay. And no, I don't believe the system does a good job at informing new users about those tools. People who (only) post a "thank you; it works" comment probably didn't check the up/down vote buttons, much less the tooltips. Now, I'm not really sure to what extent this rule will be enforced. Consider this recent comment1 of mine, for example: The question is closed as duplicate because it has been answered before. Check the linked question. You'll find the same answer and other alternative solutions too. Feel free to upvote the answer(s) you find helpful. With this new rule, are you saying that I should/will be "punished" for that? 1 Admittedly, that user wasn't new to the site but similar situations happen more often with new users. —Also FYI, I was about to vote to close the question myself but Camilo beat me to it. Share Follow edited May 19 at 1:02 answered May 19 at 0:23 41686d6564 stands w. Palestine41686d6564 stands w. Palestine 18.2k55 gold badges4242 silver badges7474 bronze badges 21 36 I also find the comments useful when I forget to accept an answer. – Andrew Grimm May 19 at 0:57 11 The context is always such that it is impossible to use language that "doesn't include any hint of pressure". If nothing else, the reputation disparity between an established user leaving these comments and a brand-new user who is receiving them creates a power dynamic where the new user feels pressured into taking action, even if they're not completely satisfied with all aspects of the answer. I have never once seen a comment of this nature that would fit the "no hint of pressure" bill. Ever. The example comment you posted is fine, just don't tell people how to vote (omit last sentence). – Cody Gray Mod May 19 at 2:29 10 I don't believe the system does a good job at informing new users about those tools. So that should be the direction to focus efforts -- e.g. automated inbox messages to the OP about questions without accepted or upvoted answers. These comments may be useful to a single user -- the OP -- but for everyone else they're nothing more than noise (except for the possibility that the OP might now accept the answer where previously they wouldn't). Reducing moderator load and comment noise is a big win. – Zev Spitz May 19 at 4:56 "There's a difference between someone "begging" for votes or pressuring users into voting/accepting and someone trying to merely educate new users about the tools that the site provides for them to use instead of "thanks" comments or the like" - indeed, very much so. But the trouble is that people reading the comment with good intentions can see that as a validation to create their comments with questionable intentions behind them. "Oh, apparently it is fine to ask for upvotes / acceptance." I don't have faith in the fact that people can resist. – Gimby May 19 at 10:29 (follow up: keeping in mind that the goal is to reduce moderator workload, not to define what is fair and unfair or right and wrong). – Gimby May 19 at 10:31 @Gimby if that was the goal, they should not be adding things to their plate, but removing them. If they believe that such thing needs to be addressed, it has to be at system level. – Braiam May 19 at 13:01 @ZevSpitz I would say that those comments should just be added to the one flag and gone rule that are applied to those that start with +1/-1. – Braiam May 19 at 13:09 9 @CodyGray "reputation disparity between an established user leaving these comments and a brand-new user who is receiving them creates a power dynamic where the new user feels pressured into taking action - Not saying that I disagree, but I mean... you're assuming a new user even knows what the tiny little number near my username means, let alone cares about it to such an extent. – Marco Bonelli May 19 at 14:09 2 @41686d6564standsw.Palestine I also sometimes see new users mistake users for mods, but that's usually because they are performing mod-like actions - e.g. closing/flagging/whatever. I see the point though, and I also agree that there are still good ways to do this (like what's suggested in Ryan's answer below). – Marco Bonelli May 19 at 14:36 2 @Marco I am not merely assuming it, but going on experience. New users do pay attention to such things; I have countless empirical examples confirming that they do, and many more examples where I have personally witnessed new users accept what I believe is a crap answer immediately after seeing a comment from the author "recommending" that they accept the answer. I don't think this is improving the site in any way. In fact, I have never once seen a new user refuse to accept an answer after receiving one of these comments. This is independent of the quality or care of the comment's wording. – Cody Gray Mod May 20 at 6:30 4 It can't be denied that someone showing you a courtesy is reason for a large portion of the population to feel that they need to reciprocate. Let's stop calling it "pressure" though, that is overstating it and it has caused this meta post to go off the rails. – Gimby May 20 at 10:15 2 @CodyGray "new users accept what I believe is a crap answer immediately after seeing a comment from the author 'recommending' that they accept the answer" Whoa, whoa, whoa. I thought you guys weren't evaluating the quality of the content here, much less imposing your opinion! How do you know the user thinks it's a bad answer or doesn't think it solves their problem? I've seen plenty of garbage answers accepted without prompting, indicating a lot of users (especially new ones) are just bad at evaluating content quality. – jpmc26 May 20 at 11:09 3 @CodyGray I find it more likely that it is not pressure but impression. People are impressed a little too easily. Big numbers tend to do that, as do status symbols like white coats or "mod" labels. That's how people tick, you can't really change it. And you can't really say that Stack Overflow makes it hard for people to be impressed, the big numbers and labels are put front and center. – Gimby May 20 at 15:08 2 @CodyGray 1. I suspect you're influenced by a selection bias. As a mod, most of the comments you see are going to be through flags, which means you'll probably be seeing more egregious examples than is actually typically. 2. It is amazingly ironic that a moderator would complain about a power differential. Consider yours compared to us. You have repeatedly denigrated our motives as a community here. How do you think that makes us feel? 3. Correlations mean nothing. Summary statistics can only disprove a claim, not prove one. There are infinite third factors possibly at play in a correlation. – jpmc26 May 20 at 16:09 2 4. Not all pressure is bad. Pressure that leads to good behavior is positive. 5. A dinner you pay for is not comparable to an answer received for free, and a tip is not comparable to an accept that costs the asker nothing. Nor is a volunteer site where we can use all the help we can get comparable to a restaurant where you pay for service. Nor is encouraging users to participate in the site's normal operation after they've already taken steps to do so the same as asking for a tip. – jpmc26 May 20 at 16:10 | Show 6 more comments 73 An alternative proposal: Comments asking for acceptance must be in response to a comment suggesting that the solution worked, and must link to /help/someone-answers. Asking for upvotes is not allowed. Note: this is a suggestion from me, personally. It does not necessarily represent the views of anyone else on the moderation team. The following would be allowed: Thanks, that worked! – Asker @Asker I'm glad it helped! Please see What should I do when someone answers my question? – Answerer Thanks, that worked! – Asker @Asker If this solution solved your problem, please feel free to accept it by ticking the checkmark to the left of the answer. – Answerer The following would not be allowed: Asking for upvotes in any situation. "Poking" the asker to review solutions if they don't accept an answer. Leaving comments linking the help center article or any other suggestion that answers should be accepted if the asker has not specifically indicated that something works. Additionally, if this proposal were accepted, I would suggest that anything linking that help center article should be deleted with a single "No longer needed" flag, the way that short "thanks" comments are today. Finally, it would be strongly encouraged for answerers to flag such "thanks" comments as "No longer needed" if the asker does accept the answer, as well as periodically going through and self-deleting older comments requesting acceptance. Reasoning: It seems pretty clear that whatever guidance the system is giving isn't working consistently. Users who post these "thanks" comments are posting noise that should be using the system's built-in method of indicating a solution that worked: accepting it. Many seem appreciative when told how to accept answers, and indicate that they were unaware of the feature. Accepting an answer is more than a way of giving the answer's author reputation: it's a way to tell the next person that the answer was useful. That's why we require an upvoted or accepted answer before a question is allowed to be used as a duplicate target: because otherwise, there's no indication that any of the answers are any good. Educating these users teaches them not to leave these comments next time. Share Follow edited May 19 at 1:49 41686d6564 stands w. Palestine 18.2k55 gold badges4242 silver badges7474 bronze badges answered May 19 at 1:39 Ryan MModRyan M 16.4k55 gold badges9393 silver badges116116 bronze badges 34 5 This is (almost) exactly my view on the subject. Two points though: 1) "Asking for upvotes in any situation [is not allowed]" I also agree that asking someone to upvote your own answer isn't appropriate, but it can be warranted in other situations (see my answer for an example). 2) "I would suggest that anything linking that help center article should be deleted with a single "No longer needed" flag" This doesn't guarantee that the asker will have seen the comment. There isn't really a perfect solution for this but perhaps a single NLN flag from the asker should delete the comment? – 41686d6564 stands w. Palestine May 19 at 1:47 1 Incidentally, this answer pretty much aligns with Martijn Pieters's answer referred to in the question above (including the part that was recently removed from the answer). – 41686d6564 stands w. Palestine May 19 at 1:55 3 @41686d6564 1) That is, admittedly, a bit of an edge case. Personally, I'd still stick to "don't suggest upvoting, ever" if only because it makes enforcing the rule incredibly complex (what if one of the duplicate's answers is yours? what if there's a chain of duplicates and you have an answer somewhere down the line?). – Ryan M Mod May 19 at 1:56 21 Accepting an answer also serves a less obvious purpose - it indicates to the world that the question has been answered, and new answers are less likely to get attention. It's a great time saver for those that are browsing the list of questions. Users shouldn't be forced to accept an answer, but I don't see a problem with gentle encouragement. – Mark Ransom May 19 at 3:49 8 @MarkRansom That's a good point. After all, we have a hasaccepted search operator and a "No accepted answer" filter option for a reason. – 41686d6564 stands w. Palestine May 19 at 4:03 4 I have to note that "accepted" has never meant, and should not mean "answered". It only meant "what the author found most useful to them personally", which neither indicates whether another answer will receive less attention, nor does it say anything about the quality of the answer (read: a pointless relic of the forum times). – Oleg Valter is with Ukraine May 19 at 4:37 7 Asking for upvotes is never OK. – Dalija Prasnikar May 19 at 6:49 3 This proposal doesn't really solve the issue with comment noise. Users don't go through their comment history regularly. – Dharman Mod May 19 at 8:36 2 Yes, but they would still be visible to many users who it doesn't concern – Dharman Mod May 19 at 8:43 4 @MarcoBonelli assuming the moderator is deleting from the comments section, it's 1 click per comment. Here's what it looks like. – Ryan M Mod May 19 at 14:30 6 @Dharman "Noisy comments" is an overblown issue anyway. The site's original philosophy was developed in opposition to 40-message threads that contain 2 important tidbits of information (ironically, that probably isn't getting enough attention). 2 or 3 fluff comments on a post do no harm to anyone, even the readability of questions & answers. If mods are spending too much of their time deleting "noise" comments that are harmless, then you're wasting your time on something that just isn't important. A better answer would be to limit flagging to situations that pose a bigger problem. – jpmc26 May 20 at 4:19 2 There's a huge problem with your suggested comment, @jpmc26. It tells the user they have only two choices: clarify their question (which presumes it's unclear and flawed), or accept your answer (which presumes it's perfect). That's the epitome of bias and a "hard sell" (i.e., pressure). Those aren't the only two options. You don't have the right to tell a new user that either your answer is perfect and needs accepted, or their question sucks and needs clarified. Simply leave the user alone. If they want to accept your answer or clarify their question, they can. Or, they can do nothing. – Cody Gray Mod May 20 at 6:27 4 @CodyGray After several weeks, it's vastly more likely the asker simply forgot about the question. I've certainly seen that, and the response to my reminder was quite positive. – jpmc26 May 20 at 8:32 4 @CodyGray "You don't have the right to tell a new user that either your answer is perfect and needs accepted, or their question sucks and needs clarified." No, it implies that if none of the answers provided solve the issue, there's a mismatch between how the answerers understood the question and the reality. The only way to resolve that mismatch is with clarification. Your interpretation is your bias against answerers. You're the one injecting an incredibly negative set of assumptions about the someone's thoughts and character. – jpmc26 May 20 at 8:33 2 I like this approach, but re: "I would suggest that anything linking that help center article should be deleted with a single "No longer needed" flag" I think that's setting the bar too low for deletion. It's an unfortunate fact that there are people on SO who, seeing that exchange on an answer that isn't theirs, won't hesitate to flag the comment to make it go away. The sad reality is that a large subset of people genuinely are that petty and self-serving. Leave it to the usual number, which is already small (like 3?). – T.J. Crowder May 20 at 12:28 | Show 19 more comments 44 Why we're not wanting to change it This answer is largely based on my own observation that most such comments are more a friendly reminder about the availability of the accept mark, and very rarely "demanding, or accrediting the other of the obligation to 'accept' an answer". Such comments are noise Such comments, under proper circumstances, are perfectly correct in that they teach new users about how the site works. If "thanks" are noise, then telling users not to generate noise is not. Voting on and accepting answers are, and always have been, optional Optional is not an alias for strictly unnecessary. Voting and accepting, or post score and acceptance, have always been the core indicators of the usefulness of an answer. Given the prevalent case of (new) users leaving a "thanks" comment that only makes judging the quality of an answer harder, it is imperative that we guide these "thankers" onto the right track of showing their gratefulness. I also failed to identify a sense of pressure from a comment that opens with "Glad to have been of help". The system now guides users in this area Both the tour and tooltips cover this If only people read the tour and check out the tooltips. As has been discussed multiple times before, I'm not the only one in doubt of their effectiveness. The system guides users in this area, terribly. Tooltips are, on the other hand, completely unqualified as a "guide". To read the tooltip, one must first notice the existence of an element, and be curious enough to hover their mouse over it. If one goes this far, they will have found out the "accept" mechanism, and no longer be the audience of such reminder comments (and this rule proposal). Accepted answers are not as important anymore for visibility The purpose of acceptance is not solely visibility. It's an indication as described in the 2nd point. Having the green checkmark, despite no longer helping in ranking, is still as useful as being a direct sign of "this answer solves the asker's problem the best" for future readers. It's NOT optional. Share Follow edited May 20 at 12:22 answered May 19 at 7:20 iBugiBug 33.7k11 gold badge4444 silver badges8181 bronze badges 16 9 Teaching new users how the site works is not and has never been the purpose of comments. Comments aren't directed at users; they're directed at posts. Their purpose is to suggest improvements to a post and/or ask clarification questions. If you want to teach users, you improve the system-provided guidance and/or get a moderator to send them a message. Considering we have no evidence that users are ignorant of how to use the site, as opposed to simply choosing not to use an optional feature, there is little reason to do either one. The guidance is far more than the tour and tooltips. – Cody Gray Mod May 19 at 7:24 11 @CodeGray If "thanks" are noise, then telling users not to generate noise is not. It's productive. That said, the new rule proposed in this post is only relevant after we have automatic guidance on users not to say "thanks". – iBug May 19 at 7:29 4 I don't know what "thanks" has to do with anything. As has been noted elsewhere, we are agreed that it would be useful to come up with system-level blocks and improved guidance for users who post "thanks" comments, but that's not what is being discussed here. What is being discussed here are comments where users ask for accepts and/or votes on an answer. If you're trying to argue that such comments would, in the long run, decrease the amount of noise, I'm afraid that is empirically denied. We've got thousands of comments like this begging for accepts going back years; it's not helping anyone. – Cody Gray Mod May 19 at 8:07 19 @CodyGray You yourself have argued that we have to accept the site as it is, not as we ideally want it to be. And the way it is is that people do leave comments for that purpose. If you want to change that, then you need to make the changes first that make such comments unnecessary. – trlkly May 19 at 12:15 3 "If you want to teach users, you improve the system-provided guidance and/or get a moderator to send them a message." I agree, as things stand. The problem is that the system-provided guidance is insufficient, and getting it to improve is extremely slow; and moderators are overworked and don't like being told to send specific messages to specific users by other users who aren't mods. – Karl Knechtel May 19 at 16:34 9 @CodyGray "If you want to teach users, you improve the system-provided guidance and/or get a moderator to send them a message" - that doesn't work. You're already complaining about the mod workload, and now you ask to flag for more moderator attention?! As for improving the system, we all know how little influence the community has. So comments are the only viable way for normal users to do this teaching. If you don't want to see these comments, give us the privilege to write mod messages that land in the asker's inbox as well. Or a new flag type that posts this automatically. – Bergi May 19 at 20:40 @trlkly such comments are, and always have been, unnecessary. – Kevin B May 19 at 20:44 27 @CodyGray "Teaching new users how the site works is not and has never been the purpose of comments." Really? So now I'm not allowed to leave comments telling new users not to post text as images, or use external links, or similar? Comments are how we communicate with each other and educate each other. I think you're going way overboard here. – MattDMo May 19 at 20:56 2 "be curious enough to hover their mouse over it" always the first thing that comes to mind, when working with a tablet... – nvoigt May 20 at 3:23 1 @MattD That's a false equivalence. Comments telling users not to post text as images, use external links, etc. are suggesting improvements to the post, which is one of the things I specifically stated as being the purpose of comments (note that I didn't make it up; it's directly from the commenting privilege description page). So, yes, comments suggesting improvements to the post are obviously allowed and will continue to be allowed. But not comments suggesting that users make decisions that are meant to be entirely personal, like voting and/or accepting. – Cody Gray Mod May 20 at 6:23 1 @trlkly No, actually, I don't need to make those changes first. The real problem here is people who are leaving unconstructive comments, and leaving them in massively large numbers, on the order of thousands, primarily in cases where there is a clear conflict of interest. I can address that by simply putting a stop to those users leaving comments. Now, I agree that it would be nice to make improvements to the site and the way that users are educated. But a failing of the site's tooling does not justify users abusing comments any more than it would justify vigilante justice. – Cody Gray Mod May 20 at 6:24 3 @CodyGray If only a small number of veteran users continuously post such comments, why make it a rule so that everyone loses the right to poke around? I'm not seeing this at a large scale, so it doesn't make sense to make a mountain out of a molehill. True, a failing of the site's tooling does not justify users abusing comments, and neither do some users' behavior justify the deprivation of all's right. This is the same way relevant self-promotion is fine when used sparingly and otherwise on-topic. We handle excessive ones case-by-case, not ban everyone off from self-promotion. – iBug May 20 at 8:56 2 @CodyGray Re the previous comment: There's no way to construct languages that don't carry the slightest tone of "suggesting", yet for the vast majority I've seen it's the news' ignorance about our voting mechanism. Getting users onto the right way of voting reduces noise, helps sort out good answers, and more importantly, encourages us to write answers (as jfriend00 makes a solid point above). It is simply unfair that one loses a deserved green check mark just for the asker's unawareness of it, and there must be an effective way to resolve this, of which a reminder comment is the simplest. – iBug May 20 at 9:06 1 The fact that you're not seeing this at a large scale doesn't mean that it isn't happening at a large scale. If anything, that's evidence that moderators have spent a lot of time handling it, which is why we're wanting to do something about it. Also, as has been noted multiple times, both in the initial post and in the comments, we mods had initially just been handling these exceptional cases, but we got a lot of pushback about it, so we are trying to do better about explaining our motivations to the community and getting their opinions. What we're hearing is surprising, but… – Cody Gray Mod May 20 at 12:08 3 @CodyGray If the intention is to handle the exceptional cases, then be explicit about it. The proposal, as is currently written, makes a blanket ban that's affecting negatively and harmfully all the innocent. / Other arguments on "deserved reward" and "motivation" have been covered thoroughly by other users, which I find verbose to repeat here. – iBug May 20 at 12:21 | Show 1 more comment 42 Asking for people to accept an answer is completely, well, acceptable. In fact, one of the canned comments in the VLQ queue asks the OP to accept an answer instead of adding a thanks! answer. Under this policy, are we going to take disciplinary action against people who use that canned comment? Share Follow edited May 19 at 23:14 Ian Campbell 21.8k11 gold badge1414 silver badges2929 bronze badges answered May 19 at 20:43 EJoshuaS - Stand with UkraineEJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine 11.3k2222 gold badges146146 silver badges256256 bronze badges 2 2 "to accept an answer" The important part is "an answer" or "the answer that you found most helpful". So I agree that we can ask for that in general, but we should avoid asking to accept a specific answer. It might not be the most helpful or helpful at all. And if we ask we should always ask below the question, never below a specific answer. – Trilarion May 20 at 7:40 @Trilarion I agree. It's acceptable to ask someone to accept an answer, but not to accept your answer. – EJoshuaS - Stand with Ukraine May 26 at 13:21 Add a comment | 35 The example you chose to cite is poorly chosen to highlight an obvious self-serving post. The policy would also impact this other, more neutrally worded comment that I've quoted verbatim ... possibly only once, maybe twice, after verifying the new user in question had never upvoted nor accepted anything. I'll quote that here: If a new user has never accepted an answer before and has thanked you for your answer it is acceptable to point them to the functionality. I normally would write something like: Hi @user12345 if this or any answer has solved your question please consider accepting it by clicking the check-mark. This indicates to the wider community that you've found a solution and gives some reputation to both the answerer and yourself. There is no obligation to do this. Sure, your quoted "hey, do something on my answer" is crossing the line, but I don't think a neutral comment ("this or any answer") and clarification that it's optional ("There is no obligation") should be cause for warnings to users, if it is used in very limited circumstances. As far as the points in the post: Such comments are noise So add a policy that if you do choose to make that comment, you self-delete it after 24 hours or so. Voting on and accepting answers are, and always have been, optional Optional but encouraged and part of the design of the site. How else do we know what content is helpful or not, other than by this behavior? The system now guides users in this area A tooltip that requires a mouseover isn't really that much guidance. An automated clippy-style pop-up that intercepts a "thanks" comment and says, "It looks like you're trying to indicate this answer was helpful, can I help?" would be better guidance. Accepted answers are not as important anymore for visibility I 100% disagree with this. When I'm scanning questions, I assume that ones with accepted answers do not need me to answer them. They are an extremely valuable filtering tool for those of us who want to answer users' questions. Share Follow edited May 19 at 16:47 answered May 19 at 6:25 Daniel WiddisDaniel Widdis 7,4343535 silver badges5050 bronze badges 3 5 Re "I assume that ones with accepted answers do not need me to answer them.": Some users accept any answer, whether it helped them or not, for the reputation points (+2 for each). It is a way to award yourself reputation points (if questions attract answers). One reason could be desperation to get to a particular desired privilege level. Or simply to make the number go up. – Peter Mortensen May 19 at 7:34 2 @PeterMortensen in the specific use case addressed in the linked answer, the prerequisite for this comment is that the user has never accepted any answer. So while your point is valid in some cases, it doesn't really apply to the specific case being discussed here as an exception; and since most users do use it correctly (when they use it) it is useful more often than not. – Daniel Widdis May 19 at 14:27 "When I'm scanning questions, I assume that ones with accepted answers do not need me to answer them. They are an extremely valuable filtering tool for those of us who want to answer users' questions." Here, I am pretty sure that "visibility" was meant in the sense that people who visit the specific question page later can see which answer was accepted, as a filtering tool for evaluating the answers. Checking that an answer was accepted can be done from the question listing, and is much faster. – Karl Knechtel May 19 at 16:40 Add a comment | 31 What we would look for Comments that are Asking for upvotes Asking for accepts Linking to the Help center page about the subject, Meta.SE, or any other resource describing voting and accepts Any other roundabout way of implying that the user should somehow reward the post with voting or an accept One of these is not like the others. It seems I'm not alone in taking exception to the emphasized point regarding leaving a comment that includes a link to a help center page. I was burned by this transparent rule a few weeks back. I have occasionally left comments letting new users (under 100 rep or asked few questions, etc) know that if the answer they were just commenting on was helpful and/or useful to them that there were options available to them. I'd leave these comments regardless of the answer author, and generally try to follow through a day later and remove them. What I find interesting is that while the stance is that voting and accepting answers is completely optional (no one is disputing this), the stack's own guidance on this seems to suggest otherwise, that users should be voting and accepting answers they find helpful. In other words, it's perceived as encouragement for desired community behavior. I find it difficult to arrive at a different conclusion. /help/someone-answers Decide if the answer is helpful, and then... Vote on it (if you have earned the appropriate voting privilege). Vote up answers that are helpful and well-researched, and vote down answers that are not. Other users will also vote on answers to your question. Accept it. As the asker, you have a special privilege: you may accept the answer that you believe is the best solution to your problem. To accept an answer: Choose one answer that you believe is the best solution to your problem. To mark an answer as accepted, click on the check mark beside the answer to toggle it from greyed out to filled in. You may change which answer is accepted, or simply un-accept the answer, at any time. Accepting an answer is not mandatory; do not feel compelled to accept the first answer you receive. Wait until you receive an answer that answers your question well. Please do not add a comment on your question or on an answer to say "Thank you". Comments are meant for requesting clarification, leaving constructive criticism, or adding relevant but minor additional information – not for socializing. If you want to say "thank you," vote on or accept that person's answer, or simply pay it forward by providing a great answer to someone else's question. /help/why-vote Why is voting important? Voting is central to our model of providing quality questions and answers; it is how … ...good content rises to the top ...incorrect content falls to the bottom ...users who consistently provide useful content accrue reputation and are granted more privileges on the site It’s only through voting that a class of editors, closers, and moderators can emerge to help run and govern the site. Voting is how site leadership forms. That’s why the reputation leagues show a breakdown of top users by reputation for the week, month, quarter, year, or all time. Our sites are all intended to be a sort of representative democracy. Moderator elections are an important part of that plan, but voting on questions and answers is the primary mechanism through which the community governs the site on a day to day basis. Every user with sufficient reputation can exercise their right to vote, every day that they visit the site. Voting is so important that there is a variety of badges associated with different aspects of voting – like casting your first upvote or downvote, using up all of your allotted votes in a day, or casting upvotes on other people's answers to a question that you have answered yourself. Voting up a question or answer signals to the rest of the community that a post is interesting, well-researched, and useful, while voting down a post signals the opposite: that the post contains wrong information, is poorly researched, or fails to communicate information. The more that people vote on a post, the more certain future visitors can be of the quality of information contained within that post – not to mention that upvotes are a great way to thank the author of a good post for the time and effort put into writing it! /help/privileges/comment When should I comment? You should submit a comment if you want to: Request clarification from the author; Leave constructive criticism that guides the author in improving the post; Add relevant but minor or transient information to a post (e.g. a link to a related question, or an alert to the author that the question has been updated). If it's acceptable to guide new users to help sections when they need help improving the quality of their question, why is there an issue pointing them the help section when they might need help understanding the purpose for the overall quality of their post, and posts in general? It is clear that some (new) users need help across the board. If the language used in a comment pointing a user to a resource presenting options is courteous and professional, isn't asking for anything, and isn't pushy/demanding/abusive/etc, is there really an issue with this? What is the "pressure"? Where is the "bullying"? Share Follow edited May 20 at 17:45 answered May 19 at 2:15 Drew ReeseDrew Reese 121k77 silver badges1313 bronze badges 16 10 In your case, the rules were documented in the first moderator message that you received, telling you to kindly knock it off. When you keep doing what a moderator has already asked you to stop doing, then that's a rule violation, independent of what has been documented here on Meta or elsewhere. It's mind-boggling to me that you find it fascinating that upvoting and accepting is optional. How could it not be? The Help Center describes that the options exist; it doesn't state that it's mandatory to use them, especially not in a particular case. That is not the case for our quality standards. – Cody Gray Mod May 19 at 2:32 6 I don't know where this idea developed that including a link to an official Stack Overflow page (such as a Help Center article) within a comment automatically makes that comment fine, but such is not the case. Moderators see a lot of extremely rude or otherwise inappropriate comments that nevertheless contain a link to Help Center articles. But the real point here is that there's just no need to ask users to vote on or accept things, for all reasons noted in the post. It's like politics in the 1800s: asking for votes is considered gauche. Don't campaign; let your posts speak for themselves. – Cody Gray Mod May 19 at 2:36 9 @CodyGray Sorry I think I've done a poor job of explaining the relevance of that middle part regarding the help section. I've revised and removed the less relevant details. I didn't say including help links automatically makes any comment fine, not sure where you're coming from with that one. Clearly extremely rude and inappropriate comments are, and should be, an entirely different class of issue than courteous comments, regardless if they refer someone to a help page or not. – Drew Reese May 19 at 5:00 1 It... still isn't clear to me. You are somehow reading a description of the options available to a user as implying it is mandatory (or at least strongly encouraged) that users exercise these options. That's not how options work. Accepting an answer and/or upvoting it are completely voluntary. That really strikes at the heart of the issue here. The folks who are leaving the comments under discussion are not leaving open the possibility that the asker is not interested in upvoting or accepting an(y) answer, and that's a problem. You are attempting to pressure the user into doing so. – Cody Gray Mod May 19 at 5:04 4 @CodyGray I don't know what else to say. It appears that perception is the heart of the issue. We're (mostly) all adults here, making our own decisions. Some may perceive a comment as being helpful, others may perceive a comment as unhelpful. Either way, if certain specific types of comments are outright wrong, then let's make them overtly wrong. If these comments are really just noise, then why not leave it at that and let the normal flagging system do its job? – Drew Reese May 19 at 5:20 1 That's exactly what we're doing. Users who have a significant number of their comments flagged as being noise tend to get messages from moderators advising them of this fact and requesting them to stop leaving such comments in the future. – Cody Gray Mod May 19 at 5:42 1 @CodyGray I know you mods are crazy busy, but might I suggest when the moderation team is reaching out to moderate users for the messaging to be as specific as possible regarding issues, and if there are any requests for clarification, etc, that someone does actually respond back so the likelihood of it turning into more moderation work later is lessened? – Drew Reese May 19 at 5:56 6 So... replies to moderator messages is something that is actually a bit broken. See, all mod message replies go into a global inbox to be seen by all moderators. But everything goes into that, and so that inbox fills up rapidly, especially if we've been suspending a lot of spam accounts, which is something we've been doing a lot of recently. What that means in practice is, it's very easy for us to lose track of a reply and forget to, well, reply to it. So, I'm sorry if that happened. We'd like to see system improvements there. Either way, they're not really a great tool for back-and-forth. – Cody Gray Mod May 19 at 6:00 7 @CodyGray wow, I had no idea it was like that. When I've been mod-mailed in the past, it's generally felt like something intended to open a discussion, which then often didn't happen when I replied. It feels more and more like time to reinvent the site (architecture) from scratch. – Karl Knechtel May 19 at 16:38 1 @DrewReese here's a couple of other bodies the mods left by the side of the road Personal attack by a moderator, with no accountability and Is it okay to request a newbie user to accept and upvote? so you can see what their mindset was going into this. – bad_coder May 19 at 19:36 1 @bad_coder I figured I wasn't the only one, and had been on the fence ever since whether or not it was worth it to surface on meta my similar experience with the moderation message which specifically cited asking for votes and accepts. I similarly mentioned that I'd done that in the past, agreed, and asked for clarification and for anything specific I'd done more recently that was the issue. Except I didn't get a response at all. I'm not alone in thinking/understanding that "asking for votes/accepts" is clearly and fundamentally different than trying to provide some guidance. – Drew Reese May 19 at 20:15 7 @CodyGray Nobody is suggesting that voting on and accepting answers is mandatory. It's optional, of course. Just like it is optional to leave a comment. What is mandatory though is the rule that when the asker wants to express their gratitude for an answer, the only correct choice for that is a vote or accept mark and not a thank-you comment. – Bergi May 19 at 20:49 2 @Karl I think there's something in the sidebar of the mod message page that explains it's not meant for back-and-forth discussion, and that if you want to discuss site policies, you should take it to Meta. At least, there's some verbiage like that in the mod view. It recommends avoiding getting dragged into extended discussions. The reply feature is there so you can plead your case or offer relevant evidence/context, and that's very useful, as sometimes we make mistakes or miss things. But it's not meant as a platform to litigate policy. Inventing a new architecture won't guarantee scalability – Cody Gray Mod May 20 at 6:13 2 You're absolutely right, @Bergi: the appropriate way to say "thank you" on Stack Overflow is to cast an upvote and/or accept vote, not leave a comment. We're all in agreement about that. And yet, it's not what we're talking about here. We're talking about users who are leaving a large number of comments telling users to accept answers. The mod team feels that isn't an acceptable use of comments. More generally, one user misusing comments does not justify another user misusing them. Flagging "thanks" comments as NLN is the recommended course of action. – Cody Gray Mod May 20 at 6:15 3 "bodies the mods left by the side of the road" Wow, I have a real problem with that language. We sent an extremely polite message to users who had exhibited a pattern of posting excessively large numbers of comments (hundreds or thousands), primarily on their own answers, asking for users to accept those answers. We felt that that was inappropriate behavior, especially on such a large scale, and we asked as politely as we could for the users to stop. We didn't leave any bodies anywhere. We didn't harass anyone. Addressing exceptional cases is what mods do. – Cody Gray Mod May 20 at 6:19 | Show 1 more comment 30 There are, in my opinion, right and wrong ways to advise people about the acceptance feature, and it seems like the mods want to make it so that they all fall under the "bad" way now; this feels wrong. Firstly, I completely agree that a user bluntly telling a user that they should accept an answer (new or not) is not ok. Something simple like: If it answers the question, you [should] accept it. This, especially by a user with a lot of rep, to a user with little to no reputation, could be read as forceful. Like Ryan M said in their answer though, it can be put far more constructively. To take their quote: @Asker If this solution solved your problem, please feel free to accept it by ticking the checkmark to the left of the answer. This is constructive, it's not pressurising them to do any action, it's educational. The user can still choose to ignore the comment and/or not accept; it is their choice. Don't misunderstand education for forcing; this is wrong in its own way. I also feel like the intent of this announcement is where it's expected that the answerer is leaving the comment; I (and others) do leave such comments on other people's answers too that we have no affiliation to. We get literally nothing from educating the user in that education. Maybe in the future if we answer a question from the user they'll know to accept straight away, but we get no reputation for it. Is advising the user of an optional choice that they appear to not be aware of really that bad that you think that you need to suspend a possible SME; depriving people of their knowledge for x number of days? Is that really a good idea? Blanket removing the right is wrong here; I understand the intent, but this has been proposed poorly. Share Follow edited May 19 at 14:38 41686d6564 stands w. Palestine 18.2k55 gold badges4242 silver badges7474 bronze badges answered May 19 at 8:59 LarnuLarnu 80.9k44 gold badges5151 silver badges7676 bronze badges 14 2 One possible amendment I suggested is disallowing such comments in case of conflict of interest (but considering any comment left in CoI as bad-faith violation by default to compensate). It would keep users that do this in good faith and sparingly on the safe side (although I firmly believe [and with evidence] you and some others are unicorns in terms of leaving comments on posts they are not involved in). – Oleg Valter is with Ukraine May 19 at 9:43 2 Truth be told, I don't think there is a right way to do it at the current time. We don't have the technology. Using comments for it is abusing comments, not what they are for. But if you can't use comments, then what do you have left? Chat I guess, but good luck getting people in there without abusing the comment system to guide them there. – Gimby May 19 at 14:45 While I appreciate the sentiment, I think the identified problem here is not so much "people are exploiting a loophole in order to beg for rep points" and much more "what would be a problem involving one distracting comment that makes the site worse for future visitors, is now a problem involving two of them". That's partly because we don't have a better communication mechanism, and partly because we're bad at cleaning up comments after the fact. – Karl Knechtel May 19 at 16:36 1 @OlegValteriswithUkraine I guess I'm a unicorn, too. Now I only leave my informational (not demanding) voting comment on others' answers, so there is absolutely no conflict of interest. I have left it on my own before, but I don't know how to use SEDE well enough to query for them and remove any that still exist. – MattDMo May 19 at 21:03 2 Alas, I don't have nearly enough room in a comment to delve into the nuances of my actual thoughts on this, but "it's not pressurising them to do any action, it's educational" is, unfortunately, wrong. It is technically still the user's choice, but I have yet to see a new user on the receiving end of one of these comments from a high-rep user who has decided to make the choice not to accept the answer in question, and, in many of those cases, the answers have been, in my admittedly subjective opinion, crap. Why did they accept it, then? Because they felt pressured to do so by the comment. – Cody Gray Mod May 20 at 6:09 1 When you leave comments with specific "guidance", and you do so from a position of perceived power, that comment carries a lot more weight than mere "education". Moderators both suffer and benefit from this, as our comments all come with a diamond/mod label attached to them, so we understand it quite well. For new users, a user with 76k rep is nearly indistinguishable from a mod, or even a god. Linking them to an official Help Center article telling them to accept an answer is virtually equivalent to making an official demand that they accept the answer, whether you mean for it to or not. – Cody Gray Mod May 20 at 6:11 5 "unfortunately, wrong" I would say you are wrong here, @CodyGray . And large majority of users here seem to agree with that. A few moderators opinion don't change that; don't pressure us to agree with that. – Larnu May 20 at 8:01 3 "I have yet to see a new user on the receiving end of one of these comments from a high-rep user who has decided to make the choice not to accept the answer in question" I am sure I can find a few, if any comments I've made aren't deleted. – Larnu May 20 at 8:02 5 "Why did they accept it, then? Because they felt pressured to do so by the comment." Did you ask them if they felt pressured, @CodyGray ? If not this is, at best, an assumed state of mind. You need to back up that claim with citations. – Larnu May 20 at 8:03 3 "virtually equivalent to making an official demand" Again, wrong. If I were demand it, the wording would be very different. There is a huge difference between between asking and demanding. If you don't know the difference, then why not make a [feature-request[ the change questions to demands? They are the same thing, right? (This is hyperbolic, but proves your stance of thinking asking and demanding aren't the same). – Larnu May 20 at 8:06 3 Couple, of examples where answers that were not accepted after letting the OP know about the accept feature: 1, 2. – Larnu May 20 at 8:17 1 Sigh. "Please accept it as the solution". That's not what the acceptance mark is for... And this is why we can't have nice things, we're so bad at communicating the truth. – Gimby May 20 at 13:25 1 ugh, sorry, just found your comment, @MattDMo, the Q&A became bafflingly bloated quickly. That's great, you are one of those who actually care about the site then! My personal gripe is mostly with the usage of such comments where one is involved which in most cases I've took a look into suggests a dark ulterior motive (there is a strong correlation between such comments and involvement)... Btw, here's my query for meta comments - simply copied to SO, it'll help find any you need (if you want [1/2] – Oleg Valter is with Ukraine May 21 at 5:39 [2/2] to, but I don't think one needs to go out of their way to purge those - happens, it's those who primarily [or in extreme volume] post those in CoI are the problem in my view). – Oleg Valter is with Ukraine May 21 at 5:41 Add a comment | 25 This policy is a Y-solution (as in XY-problem). The problem here is users who encourage misuse of the voting and accept features, either actively by begging for votes when it's not appropriate or more subtly by just not providing any usage guidance when bringing it up. Users must be allowed to educate or remind other users about site features. In a given instance of talking about accepts or votes, determining which one of those is happening is always going to be a judgement call that requires examining the context. A blanket ban is not the right solution. This portion of the policy is especially egregious: Linking to the Help center page about the subject, Meta.SE, or any other resource describing voting and accepts. If you find yourself banning people from telling other users to read the help and learn about the site's features, you have clearly gone off the rails. A better policy would look for red flags like these: Users who routinely/frequently make such requests Users who mislead other users about when to use the features Users who don't provide any guidance about how to determine whether or not an accept or upvote is appropriate in the given situation Users who demand action rather than encourage and educate, especially if an incentive or threat is attached to the demand These qualities would indicate a user is more likely to be trying to manipulate others to their advantage rather than educating them on the site features. I will grant that the instances of legitimately asking for an upvote are much less frequent than those asking for an accept, but regardless, we should never be threatening users for wanting to educate about site features. Any policy to address the actual problem is going to have to be subjective and leave room for judgement calls about whether a user is going too far, and this blanket ban does not do that. Also, this is bull crap: Voting on and accepting answers are, and always have been, optional We don't want to see users pressured into doing either. Having users call attention to it when they've made a post brings a sense of pressure to do it, regardless of the merits. While these activities are certainly optional in the strictest sense, they are strongly encouraged. The site help itself pressures users to participate in doing so (See What should I do when someone answers my question? and Why is voting important?), and automated guidance is also a form of pressure. If an asker actually gets the solution to their problem, they should feel a little pressure to mark it and upvote it. We need users to do this for the site to work. The merits are vitally important and should not be ignored or discarded. Obviously, we don't want people bullied or harassed into it, but a single polite comment bringing up the activity certainly doesn't qualify as those. Share Follow edited May 20 at 9:07 answered May 19 at 20:05 jpmc26jpmc26 26.8k88 gold badges7171 silver badges113113 bronze badges 56 8 @KevinB You don't institute a draconian rule and then promise it will be applied subjectively. That is just inconsistent and will lead to confusion and pedantic arguments. If you want wiggle room, you put it in the rule explicitly. – jpmc26 May 19 at 20:46 1 @KevinB You can tell that yourself by looking at my history. Why on Earth would you want a repeat of that disaster, even on a smaller scale? – jpmc26 May 19 at 20:48 2 @KevinB Disasters don't improve the site. – jpmc26 May 19 at 20:50 3 @KevinB LOL! A mass exodus and complete alienation of a large portion of the user base as a response to active discrimination is not "relatively unaffected." – jpmc26 May 19 at 20:55 1 Eh, no, the CoC isn't the thing people left over, LOL – Kevin B May 19 at 20:55 4 @KevinB Listen to me. People have different motivations. Here's an example of a different one: I like it when good content is promoted and rewarded. Seeing the site work as intended is its own reward to me because it helps me and other people find the information they need and get the job done properly. More people doing their jobs well means less problems for me in all areas of my life, from my online banking to my mobile apps. That's why I want to see good content promoted and rewarded, and that is explicitly the purpose for building these features into the site. – jpmc26 May 19 at 23:30 3 @KevinB For me and scores of other people who see curation as important, the reputation is meaningless. And the existence of that motivation completely disproves your claim that all comments of this nature are "begging" for reputation. – jpmc26 May 19 at 23:31 5 @KevinB Large numbers of these comments are left in response to things like "That worked!" as the original post here itself admits. When that's the case, the asker has already confirmed that the content is helpful, and the person leaving the comment need make no evaluation. That kind of context is absolutely vital. – jpmc26 May 19 at 23:33 2 @KevinB It's also great evidence that people leaving these comments are doing nothing wrong, and even if an automatic reminder existed, that doesn't give you license to vilify everyone who leaves such a comment. – jpmc26 May 19 at 23:35 2 (Caveat: only read the answer, not all the comments.) "The problem here is users who encourage misuse of the voting and accept features, either actively by begging for votes when it's not appropriate or more subtly…" In fact, we completely agree. This is exactly what we're doing. We're attempting to address users who leave hundreds or thousands of these comments, often as blatant begging, almost always on their own posts. Now, determining "when it's appropriate" is difficult, as that's inherently subjective. Mods aren't going to rate the worthiness of the answer. – Cody Gray Mod May 20 at 6:02 2 All of your enumerated criteria are exactly the same criteria we have been looking at when determining whether to take action (such as sending the user a message asking them to stop leaving such comments), and they're the same criteria we plan to continue following. You've nicely summarized the problems and concerns leading up to this policy announcement. The thing is, we don't want to inadvertently create more work for ourselves or encourage rules-lawyering, so we're just going with a very clear policy. – Cody Gray Mod May 20 at 6:04 2 If it so happens that a user chooses to leave a small number of these comments, in cases where it's fully appropriate, then it's extremely unlikely that a mod will never notice. If we don't notice, we're not going to do anything. Even if we do notice, well, we haven't announced we'll be throwing common sense to the wind. As with all policies, it requires putting at least some baseline level of trust in the mod team not to be idiots. I think that's fair. The policy absolutely does leave room for subjective judgment calls. But policies that say "it's subjective" aren't policies. – Cody Gray Mod May 20 at 6:05 7 @CodyGray "All of your enumerated criteria are exactly the same criteria we have been looking at when determining whether to take action" Then write the rule that way instead of writing it as a blanket ban on linking the voting help pages!!! If the rule as written is not the rule being applied, that's a problem and is a major source of the push back you're getting here. – jpmc26 May 20 at 7:44 2 @CodyGray "Even if we do notice, well, we haven't announced we'll be throwing common sense to the wind." When your policy includes a blanket provision forbidding linking part of the help documentation, yes, you have. It's not on us if you've communicated that badly. – jpmc26 May 20 at 7:45 2 @CodyGray "As with all policies, it requires putting at least some baseline level of trust in the mod team not to be idiots." Hard for me to do when ideologically motivated lies and willful misinterpretation (explicitly contradicted by nearby content of mine) have been used to justify punishing me on multiple occasions and then met with silence when I pointed them out. The entire point of putting a law above everyone is that people cannot generally be trusted to rule fairly. I expect SO to makes its rules and adhere to them as a binding contract between itself and its users. – jpmc26 May 20 at 7:49 | Show 41 more comments 22 Summary The underlying problem is a technical problem. If you want a rule change like this, obviate the technical problem with a technical solution first. The OP implies a belief that this has already happened, via the site tour and the tooltip for the accept button. My position is that these do not solve the problem. My proposed solution is to use a modal on the comment section for answers, to explain the acceptance system to new users - with explicit instructions. The system's guidance to new users is not sufficient The system provides suitable guidance to new users in terms of voting and accepting answers. Martijn's original post was made when such guidance didn't really exist. Both the tour and tooltips cover this Tooltips Tooltips cannot ever solve the problem. This is primarily for the same reason that Stack Overflow exists in the first place: they are documentation, in a place where the reverse is needed. Documentation for code and libraries answers "what does this function do and how does it work?", where people instead have the question "what is the function that does this specific thing?" Similarly, the accept-answer tooltip documentation answers "what is the purpose of this weird outlined checkmark symbol?", where people instead have the question "how should I interact with the web page in order to communicate that the answer was helpful?". Secondary to that, tooltips are not discoverable by our new user in this hypothetical. To see the tooltip, you would have to notice the checkmark outline, and be curious about it. But more importantly, to accept an answer rather than leaving a comment, you would first have to have the idea that leaving a comment might not be the right thing to do. Comment sections afford commenting, i.e., communicating your thanks (in this case) in writing. Written communication is always going to be the most natural way to give feedback to people who just communicated with you in writing. Tour First off, the tour is not going to be popular no matter how shiny or "responsive" or "web 2.0" it is. It's still out of the way; it's still an exposition of site culture (very many people would rather learn by immersion). The basic overview - the "we're a bit different" and "this is a question and answer site" and "we're building a library" (i.e.: not operating a help desk) stuff belongs on the logged-out front page. The rest is just not something you can make people digest all at once without resentment - not because there's a lot of it (it's really quite short honestly) but because it doesn't match how people think about communities and cultures. More importantly for this specific situation, though, is the part about accepted answers: The person who asked can mark one answer as "accepted". Accepting doesn't mean it's the best answer, it just means that it worked for the person who asked. I don't expect this text to be effective at guiding new users to accept answers, even if they read it. For that to happen, they would have to: retain that information mentally map the checkmark outline on the question page to the filled-in checkmark that was shown in the tour (again, the tooltip cannot help with this; the problem is noticing the outline and suspecting that it's related, not with understanding it) mentally translate "the person who asked can do this" and "accepting means it worked for that person" into "if you asked, and it worked for you, you should accept, and you should also not use other natural ways to communicate that" In my experience, people generally don't work like that. That's why signs say "Please keep off the grass", rather than "Walking on the sidewalk helps protect you from exposure to pesticides". Technical problems have technical solutions The problem with the "please accept" comments is that they try to correct the problem of "this user is adding a comment that shouldn't be" with another. It's a useful way to send a message to that user and prevent the issue going forward (again: written communication is a natural response to written communication from a person, and comment sections afford comments), but: there's a decent chance that the user won't come back anyway there's more to clean up The underlying problem here is that a) the feedback came after the new user made the comment; b) the feedback appeared publicly. This is a technical problem, not a social problem. The social behaviour is fine. The experienced user is explaining to the new user how the site works, in a polite way. That's how healthy communities work. The solution follows naturally from the problem description. The feedback should pre-empt the comment, and it should be displayed privately. That entails: when the new user (detected by reputation, account age, whatever) clicks into the comment section for an answer, a modal appears with the necessary information: "Comments on Stack Overflow answers should be used for XYZ, and not for ABC, etc. etc. If this answer helped you and you are satisfied, then stating your thanks is not necessary. Instead, click the green checkmark outline to the left. This accepts the answer, rewarding the answerer with reputation points." The modal would explain all the points that are relevant in this context, and nothing else. It would give explicit instructions on what to do. It would also be emulating a system that is perfectly web-2.0 like and shown to work on many other websites (particularly Google-owned sites like Gmail and Youtube). Share Follow answered May 19 at 16:04 Karl KnechtelKarl Knechtel 59k2424 silver badges4141 bronze badges 21 It would likely be more effective to instead detect when a user is attempting to leave such a comment and informing them of the proper way to "thank" someone for answering their question, whether they're a new user or otherwise. – Kevin B May 19 at 16:07 3 Possibly. I have a general distaste for automated attempts at understanding human communication. Effectiveness aside, it kinda just creeps me out, honestly. – Karl Knechtel May 19 at 16:22 How about if any flag autodeletes the comment? It involves at least one human that would in theory be seen by a moderator. – Braiam May 19 at 16:24 That's an improvement over what we have, but it does still move things to be after the fact. I'd need more data to be swayed, I think. Is it at all common for users who aren't new to do this? If that happens, is it not simply because they weren't properly told about it yet? – Karl Knechtel May 19 at 16:27 1 "The underlying problem is" also that acceptance generates rep. If acceptance were just ... acceptance, we could probably live with people reminding others about it. – Trilarion May 20 at 7:44 The other thing about tooltips is that they don't exist on touchscreens. Sure, only a low percentage of people tend to post questions & answers on SO from phones or tablets, but I suspect a higher percentage check their posts from mobile devices. – PM 2Ring May 20 at 12:45 1 On a related note, this makes it very difficult to discover a lot of the features of the Stack Exchange interface on touchscreens (and to some extent on devices with a mouse). You essentially have to click on everything by trial & error to see what happens. It mystifies me that so many features are hidden in plain text rather than obvious buttons, and that this interface isn't clearly documented. The Tour (kind of) tells you how to use the site, but documentation on how to use the interface (apart from the editor Help) is either non-existent, or buried in various meta pages. – PM 2Ring May 20 at 12:47 1 Sorry if that last comment seems to be going off on a tangent, but a central theme of this question revolves around educating newbies. IMO, the system features do not do an adequate job, so it's often necessary for old-timers to post educational comments & links. – PM 2Ring May 20 at 12:51 @Trilarion the purpose that the accept votes also awards reputation is because that allows new sites to kickstart even if all the established users go away. Imagine that everyone with reputation >1 disappear tomorrow, who will have any privilege to do anything? – Braiam May 20 at 15:03 @Braiam You can always ask or answer something. No reputation needed for that. – Trilarion May 20 at 19:09 The system already has a way to deal with lack of people with reputation. – Kevin B May 20 at 19:13 @Trilarion you need people to be able to vote, to rank content. That is a privilege, that if no one has and there isn't reputation for accepts, no one will have. – Braiam May 20 at 21:26 2 Just help campaign for SE to finally untie the privilege system from the wretched reputation thing and change it to something at least remote useful - progression-based, @Braiam, and we won't have a problem with lack of users with curation privileges no matter the rep. – Oleg Valter is with Ukraine May 20 at 21:38 1 @Braiam how do you think new sites get started? – Kevin B May 20 at 22:16 1 I want users to achieve them with meaningful interaction, @Braiam, not income accumulation. The system does not work, and I am actually baffled you don't see it at this point. Also, the notion it produces high-quality content is laughable, really. Just look around. – Oleg Valter is with Ukraine May 21 at 5:19 | Show 6 more comments 12 I really do not care about the points. I think I've never asked someone for upvotes or accepted vote on my answer. And despite those... I thoroughly disagree with this. If someone is becoming a problem, that should be dealt with, but only when it becomes a problem. Explaining how a mechanic of the site works is never a bad thing. What would be next? I should not comment telling users that the edit button should be used when their question is closed? Or that their code has so many issues that their question is too broad? Or how duplicates work? If moderators have so much time on their hands that they will start policing these, maybe they have enough time to also kick-start the burnination process, which have been stagnant for years. Everyone knows there's a backlog of bad tags that needs to be dealt with. Share Follow answered May 19 at 12:57 BraiamBraiam 1 9 7 Burninations have started back up, and have been nearly continuous for a couple months, except for a short break where posts from CMs resulted in no free [featured] slots for new burns. write and writing are currently being burninated -- feel free to join in. We can still do burninations in parallel with enforcing comments. – Zoe stands with Ukraine Mod May 19 at 13:02 1 @ZoestandswithUkraine you are missing the point: if you are "overworked" you should not be adding things to your plate. It's not that foreign concept that you don't add things to your responsibility if you can't deal with the ones you currently have. – Braiam May 19 at 13:03 2 Are you saying you are ok with reading these comments even after many years? Why do you think they shouldn't be deleted? – Dharman Mod May 19 at 13:09 5 @Dharman no, I'm saying that if moderators think this is a solution then you are totally unaware of the solutions that can be had. The solution to moderators overloaded is not adding more load to it. If you are seeing plenty of flags and all of them should be just accepted, just ask for it to be added to the regex that removes a comment with a single flag. Zero extra effort for moderators, those that feel bothered by such comment see them being deleted, no one that gives them in good faith would be penalized. Win-win-win. – Braiam May 19 at 13:14 4 But be prepared to argue the case with data, like Shog did – Braiam May 19 at 13:16 3 @Dharman also, what made you believe that I'm ok with such comments? Didn't you see my flag history? If I find them I flag them, but this "rule", whenever it comes from, makes me think that moderators are sorely lacking an outside voice that tell you how bad your ideas are. – Braiam May 19 at 13:24 @Braiam "makes me think that moderators are sorely lacking an outside voice that tell you how bad your ideas are" SO in a nutshell for the past 5 years. – jpmc26 May 19 at 20:51 If we moderators weren't interested in an outside voice to tell us how bad our ideas were, why would we read and/or post things on Meta? Why would I have taken the time to read hundreds of answers/comments from users here expressing disagreement about something which I think is just common sense and obviously feel strongly about? Sorry, but this kind of oblique insult just doesn't land. It's hard to, on the one hand, leave comments like that one denigrating moderators, and, on the other hand, claim that comments you're leaving requesting accepts aren't laden with comparable innuendo. – Cody Gray Mod May 20 at 6:48 1 @CodyGray this idea is just an example of an idea that should have been quashed the same moment it was uttered as impractical, pointless and the opposite of what your stated "objectives" are. If you don't have anyone that will tell you that in the in-group, then I don't know what to tell you. Maybe you all need to collectively touch grass? – Braiam May 20 at 10:43 Add a comment | 12 No. Please don't penalize users for simply reminding other users of how the site works. I would think Stack Exchange would want new users to learn how the site works. If someone demands an upvote or an accept, that's being rude and such a comment should be deleted for that reason. Threatening or bullying comments pressuring a user to vote or accept are unacceptable. Asking for an upvote or an accept, while not rude, can be flagged as No Longer Needed, but without penalty. Relevant comments reminding users of how the site works are needed and should not be flagged for deletion or penalized, even if they are "second class citizens". But as most of us routinely see, many new users don't know how the site works, despite guidance and the tour. If I answer a user's question, that user hasn't accepted an answer before, and that user posts some kind of "Thanks! That helped!" comment, I will continue to add my standard comment that gently reminds and informs the user that they can accept the answer they think is the best, without asking or demanding: As the asker of this question, at your discretion, you may accept the answer you think answers your question the best. I will do that for the primary reason of making the site better by informing users of how the site works. That is needed. If the user accepts an answer, even if it's not mine, I'll do my best to delete my comment myself. At worst, in that case, I don't mind if it's flagged as NLN and deleted as such. Share Follow answered May 19 at 23:05 rgettmanrgettman 174k11 gold badge1717 silver badges2020 bronze badges 9 3 To be clear: no one is proposing any penalties here. We're just clarifying the policy is that such comments should not be routinely posted, and that, as such, they're going to be deleted on sight. If a particular user is posting hundreds or more of such comments on a regular basis, they're likely to get a message from a moderator asking them to stop. It's no different than the way we handle all other matters when it comes to comments. – Cody Gray Mod May 20 at 5:36 4 The problem I believe you're missing, as with most people here, is that, no matter how politely you attempt to phrase the comment, there's an inherent power dynamic involved in a 172k rep user leaving a comment "informing" a brand-new user how the site works. You may have attempted to be entirely neutral, and you may have even succeeded on a purely textual level, but that user is still going to feel pressured (previously, I've used the term "bullied", but I'll avoid that b/c it's been suggested that trivializes real bullying). – Cody Gray Mod May 20 at 5:39 2 Considering that there's no requirement for users to accept answers, and their choosing not to do so doesn't hinder the experiences of other users or future researchers, or make the site any better, it is our collective considered opinion (and certainly my own) that it would be preferable to risk a few new users not accepting answers when they might otherwise do so if they were better educated, than to have new users feel pressured into accepting answers that they are not actually satisfied with, just because of the way they were told and/or who told them in what context. – Cody Gray Mod May 20 at 5:40 2 And then there are the correlated issues of noise and scale. Even if you do follow up and delete your own comment, it was still there on the page for all the time that it was there, serving as a distraction to other viewers/researchers. This is something we should all strive to avoid. The purpose of this platform is questions and answers, not teaching users how to use the site. If the latter is getting in the way of the former, then it's a problem. Beyond that, it sounds simple to just leave the comments for a while and later flag/delete them, but that's a lot of work for mods. – Cody Gray Mod May 20 at 5:41 4 Again, most people here are not understanding or appreciative of the sheer scale/volume that we're talking about. Each user we've messaged so far about this, and each case we've even contemplated taking any action, has involved thousands of these comments. When you consider we're talking about hundreds of users, each leaving thousands of comments... that's a lot of comments. It requires more than just a one-off, case-by-case type of management. Maybe that's unfortunate, but that is the reality. – Cody Gray Mod May 20 at 5:42 6 I'll meet this one half way though. I am 100% positive and convinced that there is no intention to penalise with this re-enforcement of what was actually already a rule to begin with. I believe it, the people attached to this are all people I have faith in. But then we are only talking about a slice of time, - right now. Not about the future. This policy opens the door for the people after the Cody Gray's in the world... to penalise people with good intentions. Because penalising IS on the table, it is just not preferable. Not yet, anyway. I can understand this makes people pessimistic. – Gimby May 20 at 8:19 4 @CodyGray, "...there's an inherent power dynamic involved in a < insert high number > rep user leaving a comment "informing" a brand-new user how the site works." - So higher rep users should be more careful when making suggestions on how to interact with the site, as that might be bullying? Are the new users you're trying to protect even aware of the rep system and how that works? From your comment - "no one is proposing any penalties here". From the Original Post - "Our hope is to not have any suspensions". These two statements appear to implicitly contradict. – ouflak May 20 at 10:39 2 @CodyGray "Our hope is to not have any suspensions, save the routine violators who insist on continuing to remind others to vote or accept." It may an implication, but is a suspension not a penalty? A gentle reminder that votes and accepts exist is just one way we can teach users how the site works, along with not posting links/images to code in their questions, giving detailed error messages, etc. I don't doubt there's a lot moderator work in cleaning up clutter around the site, but if I think it guides the user and helps the site, then I'll post it. – rgettman May 20 at 17:43 @CodyGray Sure, there is a "power dynamic", but I endeavor always to exhibit exemplary behavior when posting, whether I have 172k or 172 or 1, and I hope everyone does the same. I understand the need to be gentle. I lurked for over a month after I joined in 2012 before posting - observing and learning the site. And on my first answer, someone posted something like, "Isn't this answer repeating another answer?", which I now understand to be part of a First Posts review. Thankfully, 2 people upvoted my answer, and if they hadn't, I would have abandoned my account. I understand. – rgettman May 20 at 17:53 Add a comment | 7 Aside from the clearly problematic comments asking for upvotes, pressuring people into accepting answers, or posting unsolicited requests for acceptance, there is still definitely a need to better inform new users who, in many cases, are apparently trying to do something "acceptance-like" for an answer. This shows up in several ways (not just as comments): Comments on an answer saying things like "Thanks, that worked" or "Thanks, that solved my problem" Editing the question to say something like "Update: got the solution from User X's answer, here is the fixed code" Adding their own answer that says "The answer from User X fixed my problem! Here is the fixed code" or anything along those lines In these cases, adding a comment with the link about how to accept an answer seemed totally appropriate. If the site systems were really good enough at educating new users about what to do when someone answers a question, these things wouldn't be happening nearly as often as they do. Perhaps if the system could detect patterns like these, the Community Bot could add a generic comment on the question with the "how to accept" link - that way there is no pressure to accept any particular user's answer. Better yet, users who notice something like these happening that the bot didn't detect could have a way of triggering the Community Bot to make such a comment - again avoiding any direct or implied pressure to accept a particular answer while still letting the new users know how the site works. Share Follow edited May 21 at 14:59 answered May 21 at 14:11 Tyler VTyler V 7,99155 silver badges88 bronze badges Add a comment | 6 The general nature of the support that I see for being able to make comments like this is pretty specific. We want to be able to remind new users that there is an acceptance system in place. Generally we want to apply this in the case that a user has said "Thanks that worked". Many have said they want to be able to do that on other people's answers, which is not at all self-serving. So, make a new specific flag. "This post is a thank you, with no additional helpful information." When anyone flags a comment that way the system will a) immediately delete the comment (maybe only if you detect words of appreciation like Thanks, thank you, appreciate, great, wonderful, merci, s'marvellous...) If the tool to analyze the flag doesn't find the keywords you want per part a) then just pass it through to the mods as an "other reason" flag. b) send the commenter, who must be the asker, a message from the system with the most polite wording that Cody can come up with, which obviously agrees with the other guidance on the site, something to the effect of "If an answer to your question [link to the question] on this site [link2] solved your problem, consider clicking the outlined check mark next to the most helpful answer". This message would only be sent to a user who currently meets some set of criteria such as less than 5 accepted answers, less than 10 questions, an account less than 2 months old. Pick your own criteria. If they don't meet the criteria just auto-delete the comment (per part a). You can put some privilege level on this flag so that some newbie can't do damage, but that's likely not critical since people that will flag the comment are likely high rep people anyway, but go ahead and enforce that. Share Follow answered May 20 at 16:43 SincSinc 48622 silver badges66 bronze badges 1 2 Basically almost exactly what some here are doing manually because the system isn't great at providing the guidance itself, and Cody wants the "pressure" to come from the system instead of users because of power dynamics and bullying. I can support this. By eliminating the X problem of "thanks, it works" comments by askers it also removes the Y problem of "thanks for the thanks but here's how the site is supposed to work" comments by others just trying to be helpful. Seems win-win IMO. – Drew Reese May 20 at 23:10 Add a comment | 6 Proposal: remove the notion of accepted answers Since I created an account here over a decade ago, getting users to accept answers that have clearly solved their problem has never worked particularly well. We could talk about why that is, but that's been done to death and more. In my view, there has been no positive change to this since I signed up. But, sitting back and thinking about it a bit, what value does accepting an answer even add? Many askers don't care enough to accept an answer, or the problem is too hard to solve, otherwise this would have been fixed a long time ago. Answerers care for the reputation, and possibly for something close to being thanked for their time. And what about people looking for answers? They clearly don't care about an accepted answer, else the behaviour for having the top voted answer rise to the top wouldn't have become the default. Vote count matters far more. The only reasons I can think for accepted answering to exist, at least in terms of how things have been designed, is to bump questions with no accepted answer to the front page, and possibly to award a bounty. (I've never awarded a bounty myself, so I'm not sure on this point.) Both behaviours could be designed differently far more easily than ever trying to automate the acceptance of answers or trying to get askers to increase their acceptance rates. Share Follow answered May 20 at 20:35 John HJohn H 14k1111 silver badges55 bronze badges 6 9 I'd go with that proposal in a heartbeat - accept mark is a relic of support forums of the old that somehow made it into the Q&A format. It adds nothing of value (no, acceptance says 0 about the quality of an answer), in many cases is harmful (to a degree that even SE, Inc realised it's a problem and unpinned them), and also causes a lot of noise because users beg for accepts in comments. Unfortunately, it's up to SE, Inc to deal the finishing blow to it, and you know how long it takes them to do anything, so... maybe, some day. – Oleg Valter is with Ukraine May 20 at 20:43 2 but mah rep points – Kevin B May 20 at 20:51 I don't like the idea of getting rid of an existing signal that many find valuable. Discussions can be had regarding the misinterpretation of that signal, but I feel that acceptance is a valuable indicator to many, many folks. Acceptance is the one signal that the OP of a question gets to contribute to, and I don't think getting rid of that would be good. – zcoop98 May 20 at 21:21 6 And that indicator is utterly wrong, @zcoop98. One of the biggest problems with it precisely stems from the fact that it is an indicator for many. It tells nothing about the quality of the post. It is contrary to our goal of helping everyone. It handicaps newer answers. It generates noise. It reduces the chances more answers can be posted as users skip questions that have an accepted answer. There is not a single benefit to it (oh, of course apart from the sweet +15 rep for the answerer. Which also is only detrimental). – Oleg Valter is with Ukraine May 20 at 22:01 4 We could keep the acceptance as a signal, but abolish the 15 rep reward. That would remove most of the incentive to encourage people to accept your answer. It would, incidentally, also make rep farming harder. – khelwood May 20 at 22:27 2 Yeah, I'd go for the abolishment of rep while keeping the accept mark. At least that would mitigate half the problems it would generate. Oh, but you see, it will take away the precious incentive to participate, who will post all those mega-duplicates and then nag to accept then? /s – Oleg Valter is with Ukraine May 20 at 22:37 Add a comment | 2 and it's frustrated some users who were genuinely unaware. Understatement Machavity. I liked curating but... If I edit/close/flag 1000 post for free and then need to ping a 1 rep user just as a reminder he didn't accept despite acknowledging I saved his day with a free solution... Sorry, then I'm getting a bad deal. Besides I'm being put under threat by the mod team after I've done 99,9% over a 0.1% action where I'm not necessarily doing anything wrong. If the mod team wants to threaten me like that they can clear up the mess themselves. I'm done. Share Follow edited May 19 at 19:30 answered May 19 at 18:40 bad_coderbad_coder 9,28122 gold badges1414 silver badges4040 bronze badges 5 3 "put under threat". No, hardly. You're being politely asked by the moderator team to stop doing something that we feel you shouldn't be doing and isn't necessary for a variety of reasons. That's not "a bad deal", that's how moderation works. This is no different than saying that a user who has contributed hundreds of high-quality answers should get a free pass on being rude, or posting off-topic questions, or any of a dozen other things that moderators typically ask users to stop doing. I've grown very weary of all these "I'm done" threats throughout this Q&A. – Cody Gray Mod May 20 at 5:34 4 @CodyGray then it's a good thing everyone is disagreeing with you (and demonstrating your way of putting things is misleading). – bad_coder May 20 at 5:45 2 Hmm? Are you defending the "I'm done" threat? Because I'm not going to be bothered in any way whatsoever if this policy causes all the rep-seekers who have been posting thousands of inducements in the comments for other users to accept answers to suddenly stop using the site. I'm puzzled that you of all people, someone who I perceive as very good at putting yourself in the place of others, is unable to understand the problematic power dynamic that such comments create when directed from high-rep users to newbies. I've never once seen a newbie refuse to accept an answer in response. – Cody Gray Mod May 20 at 5:58 @CodyGray this time I will not prove why that latest argument is wrong. – bad_coder May 20 at 6:54 8 @CodyGray A lot of your comments seem to be about the power dynamic of high-rep users vs newbies. Do I take it therefore that you are more relaxed, when a low-rep user does the same? I have certainly written such comments at times. Indeed one newbie in a private chat revealed to me that he thought he did not have sufficient reputation to accept an answer, because the check was "greyed-out". I do not have as much time to spend on the site as I would like. I almost never open a question with an accepted answer. Encouraging newbies to accept saves other users' time. – Jonathan Willcock May 20 at 10:48 Add a comment | 1 It's been stated strongly in a number or answers and comments that new users are fully conversant with all SO policies including question answered Let's look at this from an analysis of actual data rather than strong opinions which IMHO are not backed up by data analysis and KPIs Some code to get data, analyse and visualise: from stackapi import StackAPI, StackAPIError import pandas as pd import plotly.express as px import urllib