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I frequently see unanswered questions, not because there isn't good answers but because the user who asked them is no longer active.

Should these be closed? As without an accepted answer they are not very useful. And if they are closed it will give an active user the chance to ask them, without it being a duplicate, and select the answer.

And if so can we have an addition reason for closing implemented such as user inactive or something?

Or should there be functionality implemented to vote on inactive users answers so that people with good answers can get the recognition they deserve?

  • So you think it makes sense to close a question as inactive, so that another user may ask the same question again? Why? – JNat♦ Dec 16 '15 at 16:40
  • So that an answer can be accepted that is correct, otherwise no answer is selected so it may be unclear what the answer is. That was just an example of why it would be useful, but there are other reasons such as no one will receive recognition for there answer, so maybe a feature to vote on an answer for inactive users would be better – Tamz_m Dec 16 '15 at 16:40
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I've addressed the main issue you bring up before on Meta Cross Validated. Basically, as the top answer on this Meta post suggests:

The number of up-votes shows the level of acceptance by the community.

If the "accepted answer" has no up-votes, but yours has 12, clearly yours is the community-accepted answer :)

Good answers will get the recognition they need from the community's upvotes — don't sweat about an accept mark.

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There's a difference between unanswered questions and questions without accepted answers.

Unanswered means that there is not currently an answer with a positive score. Even if a question's asker becomes inactive, the question itself can still be considered answered if the community votes it up. It will also then be removed from the unanswered page.

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