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As I'm new to Chess.SE, I was curious as to the community opinion on asking a question and then accepting your own answer when others exist. I understand that it's encouraged by SE to answer your own questions, but what about accepting the best answer? If others people answer your question and get a number of votes, it seems a bit odd to me to answer your own question a few days later and then accept that one.

A user has been going around asking questions, waiting for other people to answer it, posting his own reply in the answers section and then accepting that reply as the best answer. Is this type of behavior common in SE sites?

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    This is the only instance of this particular behavior that I can recall at this young site, and I've never noticed much of it elsewhere in the network. I'm sure it gets discouraged on most every site (and I think it did here as well, as you'll note the answers in question are no longer marked as accepted). As Andrew's answer below points out, the system is at least built to make it relatively fruitless behavior in terms of, say, greed for reputation or attention. And we should keep in mind that the user involved is himself new to the site, its format and its customs.
    – ETD
    Jul 1, 2013 at 22:12
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    Side note: I hope none of this dissuades you from continuing to contribute. :)
    – ETD
    Jul 1, 2013 at 22:12
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    Of course it wouldn't :) thanks for all of your replies!
    – Andrew Ng
    Jul 2, 2013 at 15:12
  • In fact, I see people asking a question and also answering it themselves within seconds. Sometimes, it is possible that they got some info in the short time. But, more probably, they had an answer before they asked the question here. I don't know what the community think about this (at least some of those questions are intriguing).
    – Cyriac Antony
    May 23, 2021 at 7:46

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It is ok to accept your own answer, but there are several things that the system does to balance out self-acceptance.

  • First, accepting your own answer doesn't give you any reputation points.
  • Second, a self-accepted answer is not automatically moved to the top - it stays where it otherwise would be based on sort order. So if another answer has more votes, that answer will stay at the top.
  • Third, self-acceptance is not available for the first 48 hours instead of the usual ability to accept an answer almost immediately.
  • Finally, the same rules regarding plagiarism apply to self-answers - flag anything that is just copy pasta from another answer or site and the moderators will delete it.

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