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Since January 29th, this new member of our community has posted six questions. None were models of clarity, but some received good answers which exhibited quite a bit effort on the part of the answerers. The member in question has not accepted nor even acknowledged any of answers given.

I think it would be good to discourage such behavior, but I can't think of anything I can do except put this person on my do-not-answer list and to ignore them in the future.

Does the community have a policy for handling this kind of problematic behavior? Or am I wrong in thinking this is a problem?

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2 Answers 2

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The Stack Exchange community consensus appears to be against trying to get people to Accept answers if they do not want to.

In my opinion it is nevertheless reasonable to inform new users and politely ask them to consider using this feature. However if it becomes clear that they do not want to Accept anything then I suggest you try to follow the advice from the Accepted answer to the first quesiton linked above:

Answer the technical question. No one should care who asked it or why.

Or in my own words: Handling blatant RTFM cases---harmful to the community?

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  • 1) I found the links you give in this answer very helpful. The are the sort of policy statements that I was looking for. 2) I am not bothered by RTFM questions. The questions that induced me to post on this issue were not RTFM questions, but posed real technical problems.
    – m_goldberg
    Commented Feb 18, 2016 at 5:26
  • @m_goldberg (2) I know. What I meant is that ultimately you have to decide if you are answering the question only for the OP's benefit, and you expect him to be appreciative (Accept), or if you are answering for the benefit of the community at large. Of course we are all volunteers here and if interaction with the OP is necessary for your personal comfort that's entirely your prerogative as well. :-)
    – Mr.Wizard Mod
    Commented Feb 18, 2016 at 5:48
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OP won't notice being on your do-not-answer list, but that's what I'm doing too after getting annoyed with OP's selfishness. (it's not about accepting only, some of folks are ingnoring commenters as soon as they receive the answer etc.)

Before that I'm asking OP in the comment under an older question, what is the reason that none of answers was accepted. Suggesting to take a look at other OP's topics too (if that's the case) and taking a tour

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