What we do with dead still-open questions?
By dead I mean that the OP had not return to Arduino SE for over a year (and probably will never come back), and therefore the question will be never closed, even if it had acceptable answers posted.
2 Answers
Just answer for the future visitor that did an internet search for the question and upvote any good answers already on the question.
A large part of SE philosophy is to help the future visitor as much as the current asker.
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If the OP never comes back, the question will remain open forever, even with an answer. How do we close it if it was already answered?– user31481Oct 31, 2017 at 10:59
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4It doesn't need to be "closed", when there is a upvoted answer the system will consider it answered in all but name. Oct 31, 2017 at 11:06
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Unfortunately, many of these are weak questions where only poor answers not deserving upvotes are likely to be posted. Often the question itself must be closed as it is either unclear or not a fit for the Stack Exchange model. Feb 17, 2018 at 21:01
I don't think that you necessarily mean closed but rather has an accepted answer, and as such, is thus removed from the list of unanswered questions. I noticed such a question yesterday: HC-12 with Arduino Mega.
It is a reasonably presented question, with code and a schematic, and it seems as if the user had found a solution. However, an answer was never posted, and even though a suitable answer could be extracted from the comments (see What if a comment solve the question?), the OP may never return to mark it as accepted and therefore remove the question from the unanswered list of questions.
Another example, but where there is already an answer, is How to get the server response when I post to a web api
There was a meta question (to which Nick gave an answer to) about having moderators marking an answer which is an obvious solution to a question, as the accepted answer, see Questions with good answers but none accepted.
answered Nov 9, 2017 at 2:30
