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Stack Overflow has recently changed the default sorting for answers so that accepted answers don't automatically appear at the top of the answer list, rather than being sorted into the rest of the answers according to their vote score. This change is supposed to be rolled out to the entire network in the near future (specifically in about 10 days), but SE leaves it up to individual communities if they want to adopt this new sorting behaviour or keep the old system of always having the accepted answer at the top.

Would you like to have the accepted answer unpinned on your site?

We can change the way the engine sorts answers in site settings. We would like to hear from you all if it is something you want to see on your site. (Please let me acknowledge in advance that we will not be able to run a test on each site.)

Movies & TV is certainly more of a soft site focussing less on 100% correct and verifiable answers, so individual acceptance might have less meaning than on a more factual "problem solving" site. Yet having accepted answers at the top is the long-standing status quo and having the answer that the asker found most fitting or helpful at the top might still be a good idea. So, should Movies & TV automatically sort accepted answers to the top as it always did or should we adopt the new purely score-based sorting? Please try to explain why you think either way is preferable.

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  • Perhaps now we can do a vote like this, where both options are made available: vegetarianism.meta.stackexchange.com/q/366/3774
    – user1271772
    Commented Oct 4, 2021 at 1:05
  • 1
    Vpting polls like that are rather bad for trying to force a consensus. I'd prefer users who are in favour of one or the other option come out and actually make a proper case for it.
    – Napoleon Wilson Mod
    Commented Oct 4, 2021 at 6:42
  • Why are they "bad"?
    – user1271772
    Commented Oct 4, 2021 at 6:56
  • @user1271772 There's some good explanations about that on MSE. This and this might be good introductions to the problem.
    – Napoleon Wilson Mod
    Commented Oct 4, 2021 at 8:27
  • @user1271772 Here's a list of reasons why. Many consumers of Movies and TV, such as myself cannot downvote the given post here (I used all my rep I'd accrued giving a bounty for a question). Second many, many people don't know that this vote is going on. Thirdly, people cannot make an informed choice if the issues are not discussed in public.
    – Araucaria - Not here any more.
    Commented Oct 10, 2021 at 17:08

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Personally, I'm in favour of having the top-scored answer at the top.

I confess this is more of a gut feel than anything quantifiable but we don't really suffer from having the "most appreciated" answer at the top rather than a single answer "appreciated" by one person (albeit that the OP is that one person).

The OP may accept the first answer they get and I see no reason for subsequent better answers to be shown lower down for that reason. The OP may not even see subsequent answers and thus change their mind as to the "accepted" answer.

TL/DR - Change to top-scored answer at the top.

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