How can we get a higher “accepted” percentage on questions?

Question

I've noticed that many of the Lifehacks questions I've been active on stay open for many months, and never get an accepted answer.

This is not true for most of the other SE sites I'm active on (AskUbuntu, Role-Playing Games, Science Fiction & Fantasy, for instance). My own suspicion is that the nature of Lifehacks is that there may be no one best answer for many questions lookign for a lifehack -- and if that's the case, it doesn't bode well for this SE.

Am I wrong? If so, is there a workable way to encourage answer acceptance?

Answer 1

This isn't a problem that needs to be addressed.

I'm not sure that you are right about acceptance being normal on most other SE sites, there are many where I am active and acceptance rates are quite low. Although I don't know if there are any statistics to be found.

The question about acceptance has also been asked on several other sites before, for example: Software Recommendations
Board and Card Games
Home Improvement
to name but three.

Conversely on some sites, like English Language Learners, there are regular complaints that users are too keen to accept answers.

The answers to the questions linked above sum it up...
Acceptance is purely down to the OP picking an answer that suits them best. If no answer is best for them, then so be it.
It does certainly not bode ill for the site as you suggest. Acceptance rates have no relevance here.

All the encouragement questioners need is already there - 2 point of reputation for accepting an answer. I would leave it at that.