I don't think this is a particularly big issue, but I'm curious as to what the accepted protocol or what-have-you on old questions that do not have and accepted answer, despite having good answers. For example, this question, asked by a user last seen last year in July.
My concerns are threefold, of more or less equal importance to me personally:
- Rep for the answerer
- Site statistics
- A little bit of an OCD desire for completeness
I'm talking about questions that have a very low probability of having new activity on them, and with OP being away from the site for a long time.
I think it's possible to start a bounty then award it by accepting an answer, and that's all well and good, but the point of setting a bounty is not necessarily to just award out an accept answer check.
Of course, the next problem is who gets to decide what the accepted answer is? The one with the most upvotes?