What is the standard practice for when the OP edits the question to include the solution?

Question

What is the standard practice for when the OP edits the question to include the solution?

For example:

• error while loading libtinfo.so.5 - SOLVED
• DB:NO RESP Using inet.httpPOST on loop()
• SOLVED - Different behaviour during bootloader burning
• Arduino UNO stops working after a while - SOLVED

Ideally, the OP should have posted the solution as an answer and then marked it as the solution.

In some cases, I would like to edit the question by deleting the solution and then post the solution as an answer. The down side to this is that this answer would have no upvotes and may appear insignificant compared to other posts with upvotes. Also, the OP may no longer be active and/or doesn't mark the answer as the solution.

For some posts (especially those without an answer) the correct course of action would be to close/delete the question.

Answer 1

I've been chatting with other moderators about this. One suggestion was to revert the edited question (where the answer is) and ask the OP to make a proper answer instead.

If this isn't practical (eg. if the question is old) the other suggestion is to make your own answer, but make it a Community Wiki answer. That way you don't claim credit for someone else's work.

You could put at the bottom of the answer:

Posted on behalf of the OP.

Answer 2

A good method is to leave a comment to educate the OP that what he/she has done is not in-step with the Stack Exchange system. After all, the aim of this site is that the community builds up and educate other users, in order to improve the overall quality of the site.

We then leave it up to the OP to do the right thing; revert the question back to the original and post the solution as an answer and accept it.

As an example, @Chris Stratton posted this eloquent comment:

@OP in the stack exchange system, questions are marked resolved not by editing the title[/question], but by accepting an answer. If none of the provided answers matches your solution, provide your own and accept that.