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This is kind of a duplicate (kind of because a real duplicate seems to have the need of being asked in the same SE forum and the duplicated question is on the main meta forum - apart from that it is almost an exact duplicate) of Accept Multiple Answers or Split Bounty among Several Users

By looking at the new Christmas challenge on December challenge: Create an Advent Calendar, I saw an interesting link in the comments leading me to this blog post: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2014/04/putting-the-community-back-in-wiki/

While I fully agree with the decision not to automatically turn a post into a community wiki, I was wondering whether it would be possible to have something between accepting a single answer (giving big credit to a single answerer) and making a combined answer as a community wiki (in effect giving less credit to both or more than two answerers). I also found these questions on the topic:

So it seems that more people encounter situations where there is not a single answer that they deem worth accepting. I just had such a situation in Define macro for sequence/list/tuple macros where I tried to solve that by accepting one answer and editing the question to explicitly mention another answer that was very useful to me.

However, I think in such a situation it would actually be more suitable to accept more than one answer. So here comes my feature request:

Would it be possible to accept more than one answer and distribute the 15 reputation points among the accepted answers at the discretion of the questioner?

That would also give a natural limit for when an answer by several people should be made a community wiki (i.e., at the latest when more than 15 people are involved). Would more people be interested in such a feature? Would it be technically doable (maybe over time)?

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    Apart from the reason you're asking: See meta.tex.stackexchange.com/questions/4482/…
    – user31729
    Commented Dec 6, 2015 at 15:23
  • @ChristianHupfer I see that there are workarounds for such situations like the ones mentioned here or in the links you and I have given. But I think these really are workarounds and no optimal solutions for situations when two (or more) different answers to the same question both have their merits and you naturally like to thank both answerers equally.
    – cryingshadow
    Commented Dec 6, 2015 at 15:32
  • @cryingshadow The model for SE is in general that accepting an answer means 'this one helped the person asking the most'. That's 'by design'.
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    Commented Dec 6, 2015 at 15:34
  • @JosephWright I understand that this is the design as is. My question is whether we 1) can and 2) want to change that. That's why it's a feature request.
    – cryingshadow
    Commented Dec 6, 2015 at 15:36
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    @cryingshadow I'ts by design for the entire network, and is a core part of the SE model, so 'we' can't change it and the 'Powers' certainly won't.
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    Commented Dec 6, 2015 at 15:39
  • @JosephWright I see. Now I also finally found the place where this has already been asked (I was surprised that this has not been asked before here). I should have gone to the main meta first: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2786/…
    – cryingshadow
    Commented Dec 6, 2015 at 15:46
  • @JosephWright You might turn your comment into an answer such that this is no longer unanswered. I linked the post on the main meta such that future readers find the right place for this topic more easily.
    – cryingshadow
    Commented Dec 6, 2015 at 16:05
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    In general, if you want to award people with some form of gratitude, issue a bounty. See How to award extra reputation for an answer?
    – Werner Mod
    Commented Dec 6, 2015 at 20:36

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Would it be possible to accept more than one answer and distribute the 15 reputation points among the accepted answers at the discretion of the questioner?

No.

First of all, such a request would have to have a broader impact, and not just local to TeX.SE. I am confident this request would not garner greater acceptance, because...

Secondly, the SE network already provides a means for distributing value to multiple answers through a bounty. See How to award extra reputation for an answer?

Of course this doesn't fit your needs exactly, as bounty offers sequentially increment, and don't seem all that small for low-rep users. However, such a feature exists and accommodates your request to a reasonable extent.

Ultimately you have to make a unique decision as two which answer help you most. If there is no such unique answer, but you feel they are equally worthy, you don't have to accept one. You can upvote both, thereby equally distributing reputation.

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