user4143: Many times questions get answered and answered well, but for whatever reason (lack of intelligence, age, language, understanding of how the site works, etc), an answer never gets accepted as the correct answer.
This seems to be a common problem on this site, mainly I think because of the clientèle that we have to deal with (blood from a stone springs to mind...) and that's making the whole site suffer IMHO.
So I am wondering if there is a way that we, as a community, could flag an answer as high quality (kind of the opposite of the low quality flag). With enough flags the answer can then be accepted by the community instead of by the OP (whom we never hear from ever again).
I'm thinking:

Can only be done on answers with > +(10?) votes
Can only be done if there is no accepted answer
Can only be done on questions older than (7?) days
Requires (5?) flags
You cannot flag your own post, but you can agree to your own post being flagged in the flag queue (so someone else has to have flagged it first)
You can only flag if you have enough rep (not my place to decide the level ;) )


Addendum:
Since the comments below have enlightened me to how the "not answered" is decided, another idea occurs to me - something that might possibly be implementable by the devs.
From time to time you come across a truly awesome answer that has no (or maybe one) vote. An answer that someone (* cough * nick * cough *) has obviously spent a lot of time and energy writing.  The kind of answer where you think "That's an answer and a half. It deserves more than just one vote".
I would gladly give up some of my own reputation to give that kind of answer 5 votes.

user19409: Perhaps, could users with a very high reputation be awarded the privilege to mark answers as the accepted answer?
I believe this would improve the quality of this site.

user18478: Call for action:
Go for the Vox populi batch and the civic duty batch.
Note if you go for the "vox populi" batch do not star questions as you will not be able to get your 40 votes.  
I hope someone noticed some upvotes today.
Tomorrow I try again for the "vox populi"
There seems to be a suffrage badge for 30 votes as well :-)

user220: I don't think the SE team would implement this. There has been various talk about this before (formal and informal), and the consensus is to leave accepting for users (especially ones who can't yet vote), and for everyone else to upvote.
For a question to be considered unanswered, it must have no upvoted or accepted answers.

user11086: I just want to echo what Nick Gammon has said and just explain my methodology for improving this. The system only considers a question as unanswered if it has no answers with a score greater than 0. There are a lot of questions out there with good answers, just none of them have been up-voted. So when I get a chance I go through and vote on answers that need
So my personal process for this is when I first open the site I scroll down through the Active list and look for questions bumped by the "Community" user. Per these answers on meta, these are exactly the questions that need attention, and one is bumped every hour. I spend a few minutes and look through the top few of them and vote where appropriate.
It's a thankless job, as there is no karma received for voting (although there are badges, I think), and it doesn't do much to address the general lack of engagement by the majority of the users here, but I does help the overall quality of the site in the long run.

user10794: Interesting idea, but I thought things were worse than that. :)
I've noticed quite a few answers (including some of my own, heh) which do not get a single up-vote, let alone being accepted by the asker.
At least with an up-vote, the system (I think) considers the question answered (maybe with a couple of up-votes, I'm not sure). (Not accepted, but at least answered, so it drops off the "unanswered" list).
If people (like you and me) are not even up-voting each others' answers, I don't know where 5 positive flags are going to come from.
My suggestion at this point is, that those of us who post regularly take a look at answers (by others) and up-vote them if they look OK.
This will have the side-effect of boosting site reputation for everyone, so that more people can participate in voting to close doubtful questions, etc.

4143: <p>Many times questions get answered and answered well, but for whatever reason (lack of intelligence, age, language, understanding of how the site works, etc), an answer never gets accepted as the correct answer.</p>

<p>This seems to be a common problem on this site, mainly I think because of the clientèle that we have to deal with (<em>blood from a stone</em> springs to mind...) and that's making the whole site suffer IMHO.</p>

<p>So I am wondering if there is a way that we, as a community, could flag an answer as <em>high quality</em> (kind of the opposite of the <em>low quality</em> flag). With enough flags the answer can then be accepted by the community instead of by the OP (whom we never hear from ever again).</p>

<p>I'm thinking:</p>

<ul>
<li>Can only be done on answers with > +(10?) votes</li>
<li>Can only be done if there is no accepted answer</li>
<li>Can only be done on questions older than (7?) days</li>
<li>Requires (5?) flags</li>
<li>You cannot flag your own post, but you can agree to your own post being flagged in the flag queue (so someone else has to have flagged it first)</li>
<li>You can only flag if you have enough rep (not my place to decide the level ;) )</li>
</ul>

<hr>

<p><strong>Addendum:</strong></p>

<p>Since the comments below have enlightened me to how the "not answered" is decided, another idea occurs to me - something that might possibly be implementable by the devs.</p>

<p>From time to time you come across a truly awesome answer that has no (or maybe one) vote. An answer that someone (* cough * nick * cough *) has obviously spent a lot of time and energy writing.  The kind of answer where you think "That's an answer and a half. It deserves more than just one vote".</p>

<p>I would gladly give up some of my own reputation to give that kind of answer 5 votes.</p>
 19409: <p>Perhaps, could users with a very high reputation be awarded the privilege to mark answers as the accepted answer?</p>

<p>I believe this would improve the quality of this site.</p>
 18478: <p>Call for action:
Go for the Vox populi batch and the civic duty batch.<br>
Note if you go for the "vox populi" batch do not star questions as you will not be able to get your 40 votes.  </p>

<p>I hope someone noticed some upvotes today.<br>
Tomorrow I try again for the "vox populi"<br>
There seems to be a suffrage badge for 30 votes as well :-)</p>
 220: <p>I don't think the SE team would implement this. There has been various talk about this before (formal and informal), and the consensus is to leave accepting for users (especially ones who can't yet vote), and for everyone else to upvote.</p>

<p>For a question to be considered unanswered, it must have no upvoted or accepted answers.</p>
 11086: <p>I just want to echo what Nick Gammon has said and just explain my methodology for improving this. The system only considers a question as unanswered if it has no answers with a score greater than 0. There are a lot of questions out there with good answers, just none of them have been up-voted. So when I get a chance I go through and vote on answers that need</p>

<p>So my personal process for this is when I first open the site I scroll down through the Active list and look for questions bumped by the "Community" user. Per <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/48579">these</a> <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/184511">answers</a> on meta, these are exactly the questions that need attention, and one is bumped every hour. I spend a few minutes and look through the top few of them and vote where appropriate.</p>

<p>It's a thankless job, as there is no karma received for voting (although there are badges, I think), and it doesn't do much to address the general lack of engagement by the majority of the users here, but I does help the overall quality of the site in the long run.</p>
 10794: <p>Interesting idea, but I thought things were worse than that. :)</p>

<p>I've noticed quite a few answers (including some of my own, heh) which <em>do not get a single up-vote</em>, let alone being accepted by the asker.</p>

<p>At least with an up-vote, the system (I think) considers the question answered (maybe with a couple of up-votes, I'm not sure). (Not accepted, but at least answered, so it drops off the "unanswered" list).</p>

<p>If people (like you and me) are not even up-voting each others' answers, I don't know where 5 positive flags are going to come from.</p>

<p>My suggestion at this point is, that those of us who post regularly take a look at answers (by others) and up-vote them if they look OK.</p>

<p>This will have the side-effect of boosting site reputation for everyone, so that more people can participate in voting to close doubtful questions, etc.</p>
