When you view the list of questions asked in a given category, you'll see that the item titles are prefaced by a status tag.
A question may have one of three statuses:
- Question
- Answered
- Accepted Answer
Let's examine how a question flows through its life cycle from one status to the next.
- A new question begins in the Question status. If the question receives a reply/comment, it immediately goes to the Answered status. Now, for each reply that a user receives, they are prompted with the text: “Did this answer the question? Yes/No”
- If the user responds “Yes” to any reply, the question goes to the Accepted Answer status.
- If the user ignores (leaves untouched) all instances of “Did this answer the question?”, the question remains in the Answered status. (This status implies that there are responses offered that have neither been confirmed nor rejected as solutions.)
- If the user responds “No” to all replies given, the question reverts to the Question status.
In short:
Question: Contains no replies at all, or contains only replies that have been rejected
Answered: Contains replies that have potentially answered the question (Another way to think about this would be “We have responses but no verified solution.")
Accepted Answer: Contains at least one reply for which the original poster responded "Yes" to “Did this answer the question?” (Another definition might be “Solution accepted.")
