You can accept your own answer tomorrow

Question

So I have this Q and somebody else had a nice A. Didn't exactly solve my issue, but put me on the right track. I upvoted their answer and was prompted immediately by the site to consider marking the answer as Accepted - but it wasn't the correct answer...

So I went on and solved my problems. Came back to the Q to state my solution, thought it'd be helpful to show the matter as resolved, but when I clicked the Accepted mark, I was told: You can accept your own answer tomorrow.

Why? Why can't I show this matter is resolved? Why d I need to make the mental note to visit this site again (probably over the weekend) to click a button?

Answer 1

The Help Centre has:

You can also accept your own answer, but you must wait 48 hours to do so. After all, someone else may come along with an even better solution to your problem!

That link leads to the blog entry Jeff Atwood wrote on the subject.

Now, there are some special rules around owner-accepted answers, to prevent gaming:

1. Wait 48 hours. You must wait 2 days from the time you originally asked your question before you can accept your own answer. This gives other users a chance to answer the question in good faith, and earn the accepted answer.

2. No change in sort order. Normally, accepted answers are “docked” under the question. This is not true for owner accepted answers; they stay in standard sort order like any other answer.

3. No reputation is earned. Normally, accepted answers confer +15 rep to the answerer and +2 to the owner. Owner accepted answers do not earn rep (or badges) for anyone.

I was initially very much against this, but several commenters in the Why Can’t I Accept My Own Answer? post convinced me that, with a few rule tweaks, it could work.

There are additional links you can follow there too.

Finally, main meta FAQ has How does accepting an answer work?

Can I accept my own self-answer?

Yes; if you've self-answered your own question, you can mark your answer as the accepted answer. There are some differences, though, that exist in order to ensure everyone gets a fair shot at answering:

• Accepting your own answer won't award you any reputation.
• The question must be at least 48 hours old before you can accept a self-answer.
• Self-answers that are accepted won't be pinned to the top.

Answer 2

A possible reason for this is explained in the FAQ on Meta Stack Exchange

There are some differences, though, that exist in order to ensure everyone gets a fair shot at answering

Users are less likely to write an answer to questions which already have an accepted answer. You might be satisfied (and rightfully so!) with the answer you wrote, but we're building a library here, so it also (perhaps even foremost) matters what future visitors, who might have the same problem as you, will see when they visit the question. It could be that they would really benefit from a third, yet unwritten, answer, and the system is designed to increase the chance of that happening.