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Currently we have 24 questions with no answers and another three with answers that have not been upvoted.

This is a pretty small percentage of the 650 questions that have been asked so far on the site, but it seems a pity to leave them unanswered if someone can work out a solution.

  • 3
    Need to leave some fodder for Necromancer badges... – Brett Champion Mar 2 '12 at 15:56
  • Yes, but @Brett do we want all those zombie questions roaming about? They tend to leave nasty stains on the carpeting and furniture. Not to mention that whole brain eating issue. – rcollyer Mar 2 '12 at 19:43
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24 unanswered questions is not bad. But, I see your point that we do not want it to get bad. Towards that end, I would suggest we do something similar to what tex.se has been doing: holding regular chat meetings to deal with the unanswered questions. Since we do not have the influx of questions they do, this can be more of an irregular occurrence for us, and could become regular, if needed.

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I suspect that, in the long run, having some unanswered questions is a good thing. The most successful SE sites seem to hover around 80-85% answered. If all (or very nearly all) the questions are answered, then a new expert wandering by has nothing to do, whereas if there are unanswered questions, a new expert wandering by might get sucked in by one of those, perhaps answering it or perhaps not, but hanging around long enough to see when a new, more answerable question is posted.

  • You bring up a good point. Also, maybe it's better not to force giving an only semi-helpful answer on a question that could get a better answer when an expert in the field comes along. I received a good answer on one of my question on math only a full month after I have posted it, despite the bounty I set (which did attract a not too helpful attempt). – Szabolcs Mar 8 '12 at 8:11
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These are practically resolved, even though they don't have a formal answer:

These are pretty much duplicates of each other (looking at the posters' intentions):

I expect the solution to this to do more with maths than Mathematica (didn't have time to read up on it in detail yet):

Also, many questions require clarification from the askers to proceed.

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