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Some users tend to answer their own question and mark the answer as the correct one. For clarification, this is when there are already one or more answers given to the question. I've marked an answer on my own questions as well, when I found a solution and no answers (or useful ones) were given. Like this:

I've seen it a couple of times now on StackOverflow but I didn't pay much attention to it as I don't know the reason behind it. Sometimes the given answers were not directly the answer to the question but they were helpful for the user to get to the solution. So when a user then answers his own question (with enough detail to the final solution) and marks his answer as the answer, this makes sense to me.

I don't do this as I want to 'reward' the person who got me on the way, for example:

But I got a bit frustrated by a user who accepted my answer as the answer to his question only to find out that later on, he answered his own question and marked his as the correct answer. Plus, his answer was almost completely based on my answer, in which I put an amount of effort to provide every bit of info he could use. Reference:

I'm not in here for the rep but others and I tried helping him. And when I pointed this out to him, all I get is: 'Thanks all, I found the solution'.

Is this normal behavior or am I overreacting here?

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    It happens. Some people are jerks. Life's too short - best to move on.
    – Oded
    Commented Dec 10, 2013 at 12:31
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    So what would you do about it? There is nothing you can do apart from pointing it out, what you did.
    – Devolus
    Commented Dec 10, 2013 at 12:56
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    I agree with both of you, but it's unpleasant, that's all. I'll leave it and move on! :)
    – Abbas
    Commented Dec 10, 2013 at 13:07
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    Look at it from this side: you provided a perfect answer, the community will reward you for that over time. In the long run you'll out-smart the copy-cats, keep your focus and energy on that, not on short-lived disruptions.
    – rene
    Commented Dec 10, 2013 at 13:22
  • Some will, some won't, so what? Next!
    – Flyk
    Commented Dec 10, 2013 at 13:30
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    If it helps they gain nothing by this behaviour; they don't get the +2 for accepting an answer, they don't get the +15 for having their answer accepted and their answer isn't pinned to the top
    – Richard Tingle
    Commented Dec 10, 2013 at 13:48

2 Answers 2

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Is this normal behavior or am I overreacting here?

A community-based site of this size has a broad definition of "normal". An OP is free to choose an accepted answer as he sees fit.

In your particular example, it might have been more pleasant to accept an existing answer and add a comment clarifying how he made use of the library. However, over time, the best answers are rewarded with up-votes from passing users. The effort you've expended won't go unnoticed in the long term.

Have you overreacted? Possibly - this stuff happens and as Oded points out, sometimes you just need to let it go.

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  • I agree that normal has a broad definition and as I explained, if well supported I accept the fact that user mark their own answer as accepted answer. It's the fact that he first accepted mine, answered himself, revoked his vote and put it on his own answer. But I'll live with it, it's not that shocking, just very unpleasant. :)
    – Abbas
    Commented Dec 10, 2013 at 13:05
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It doesn't seems normal because the user have simply copied 2 lines from your solution to his answer.

However, he have slightly modified it (removing Convert.ToInt32) and maybe in his head it's the substantial change... The users are free to accept any answer they want (and they have no interest in accepting their own, since they earn no extra rep from it), but sometimes they simply lack minimal understanding of the topic. You can't prevent accepting the answer because of lack of minimal understanding, but you can do that with the question.

It seems to be the case, because the user posts some code (maybe even not his) and asks for help. I've voted to close that question.

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