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Recently I've incurred in a situation analogous to what explained here: Changing acceptance after a long time

For a question of mine, I had accepted an answer by JPi but then I accepted another by egreg.

Even if I prefer egreg's one, the two answers were similar and both good, so I was sorry to take away 15 points from JPi's reputation.

In these cases, is it too complicated to decrease JPi's reputation only by 5 points or to trasform the previous acceptance in a (second) upvote by me?

Obvioulsly only once per answer, otherwise I can switch between Jpi's and egreg's one again and again and make their reputation go to infinity.

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  • 8
    How about awarding a bounty to the unaccepted answer? Or upvote other good answers by the relevant user...
    – user31729
    Aug 10, 2016 at 14:19
  • 2
    @ChristianHupfer I haven't thought about a bounty, even if it puts the question in the featured list... and I don't think it is necessary for my question. However I've already upvoted a couple of other good JPi's answers, I'll go on this way, thank you!
    – CarLaTeX
    Aug 10, 2016 at 14:26
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    If Frank Mittelbach (and some other people) has 50K and I have 100K nobody should care about the points because it doesn't make sense.
    – percusse
    Aug 10, 2016 at 22:17
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    @percusse, you are right but I felt as if I had punished someone who is not to blame! :)
    – CarLaTeX
    Aug 11, 2016 at 4:59
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    @CarLaTeX: Reputation does not really count, but it shows at least some appreciation of the efforts of users here to help others. Some answers are overrated, a lot of answers are underrated, but not voting at all is careless (as a general statement, not related to your acceptance/unacceptance of an answer)
    – user31729
    Aug 13, 2016 at 9:33
  • @ChristianHupfer Yes, it is a gratification, that's why I was sorry!
    – CarLaTeX
    Aug 13, 2016 at 18:04
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    Thanks CarLaTeX for your considerateness. No worries: it happens just as often the other way around.
    – JPi
    Aug 16, 2016 at 14:05
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    @JPi, you're welcome (I hope they don't scold me for making a useless comment, hahaha)!
    – CarLaTeX
    Aug 16, 2016 at 14:14

2 Answers 2

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Don't feel bad. You're selecting the answer "that helped you most".

There already exists a bounty system you can use to reward contributors beyond voting and acceptance. Here you can select from as low as 50 reputation up to 500 to give to someone.

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  • Thank you, @Werner, Christian Hupfer has already suggested me a couple of methods to compensate JPi and I have already upvoted some other good JPi's answer. However I take this opportunity to ask you if there is a way to give a bounty without leaving the question in the featured list for a week, that is without following the complete iter of the bounty, thank you!
    – CarLaTeX
    Aug 10, 2016 at 20:46
  • @CarLaTeX: No, the bounty system puts the question into the featured list, always. However, the discretion is yours to award the bounty whomever you want. So, even if there are more answers coming in, you can award it to the answer of your choice. Consider making an unemotional decision.
    – Werner Mod
    Aug 10, 2016 at 20:49
  • It was just a curiosity, I don't think that particular question of mine worths a bounty. I made an unemotional decision accepting egreg's answer but (as TEX SE sometimes checks) I'm not a robot! :)
    – CarLaTeX
    Aug 11, 2016 at 4:55
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Although you have nothing to feel guilty about in changing who you award the tick to, there is something you might ponder on the back of this.

This, I suppose, is one of the reasons why people may sometimes be encouraged to wait a little while (some people really do wait weeks, but 24 hours seems fair) before accepting an answer. Not only does it avoid giving rep and then taking it away, it leaves the question open, which may attract a little bit more attention. On this particular site, people tend to be very good at posting an answer if they have an answer to post, but still, if a question is marked as solved, people may not feel much need to weigh in.

The latter point is the received wisdom on some sites, but I personally am more compelled by the former. Although there's no real harm in moving the tick mark around, it seems prudent to give everyone a chance to have their go before announcing a winner.

The only danger is that you might forget to award a tick at all, so do bear that in mind.

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    You are right! Next time I'll wait some time before accepting an answer. I don't post many questions, hence I hope to remember to do it, thank you!
    – CarLaTeX
    Aug 11, 2016 at 14:23
  • There used to be a visible "accept rate" displayed with the user flair. This is not the case anymore.
    – Werner Mod
    Aug 11, 2016 at 18:08

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