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I have a question HERE which has more up-votes for an answer I have not chosen than the answer I have.

What I want to know is if an answer has more up-votes than my chosen answer should I change my chosen answer to the most up-voted for the sake of readers in the future?

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    Simply NO, you should choose answer what has really helped you period
    – Shanky
    Jun 22, 2016 at 11:09
  • Seriously, given the number of mis-understood questions, I wouldn’t take the number of votes as an absolute indicator or correctness. You ask a question, someone answers it to your satisfaction. That should be enough.
    – Manngo
    Jun 28, 2016 at 23:20
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    No what is hard is when actually use the other answer because you were asking the wrong question. I still give the check to answer to the question but up the answer that helped me more.
    – paparazzo
    Sep 22, 2016 at 23:18

2 Answers 2

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No, not at all. It is alright to change your picked answer if it suits you better or if it looks like a better answer for you or for the question and the future readers (that's a bigger discussion). But changing your pick only based on the number of votes is not recommended at all.

ps: For this particular question I do think that the highest voted answer (and some others) is more elegant, but that's only my take (thus my vote).

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Being the author of the question, you are free to choose whatever answer works for you, as explained in the Help Center:

Accepting an answer [...] simply means that the author received an answer that worked for him or her personally [...].

The chosen answer doesn't have to be the one most upvoted. In fact, there may even be an added value in their choosing an answer that differs from the community's choice (expressed in the form of votes) – particularly if the author explains their choice, which, however, is still not mandatory.

And just as you are free to choose an answer for the first time, you are free to change your choice

…if a newer, better answer comes along later.

Again, this works particularly well for every party involved if the author does indeed decide to follow the new solution rather than just giving in to the indirect pressure of the answer's being heavily voted. (Shouldn't be a problem in this case, though, as ypercube's suggestion is easily superior to the trigger solution.)

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