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I have found this question about bonfire ascetics in a Dark Souls question, and someone has posted an incorrect answer (it is blatantly incorrect) which has been accepted already.

Can the answer be deleted if it is accepted?

  • It's funny how since you posted this Meta post the answer has been downvoted almost four times as much for one day then any other day it's been downvoted – Memor-X Jan 21 '15 at 23:31
  • Well... that's... – Ben Jan 21 '15 at 23:33
  • I feel the saying "You can lead a horse to water..." comes into play here somehow... – Ben Jan 21 '15 at 23:33
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    "You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it accept it, just down vote it like crazy" – Memor-X Jan 21 '15 at 23:34
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Yes. This has happened. This link won't work for non-10kers because, well, it's deleted. But here's the text of the answer:

In short, you will get Grilled Porkchop. (This is incorrect, the pig will actually turn into a Zombie Pigman)

If you don't see the problem here, clearly you need to disable images in your browser or view source! Who doesn't do that.

![In short, you will get Grilled Porkchop.
  (This is incorrect, the pig will actually turn into a Zombie Pigman)][2]

SE is not here to bring answers that look right, we're here to bring answers that are right. Sometimes answerers and askers won't be around to keep their answers and their checkmarks up to date. This is especially a problem if the wrong answer is accepted and highly upvoted.

In those exceptional situations, yes, we reserve the right to take exceptional measures.

  • So for example, in the question I linked, the same thing has occurred? A user has provided an incorrect answer, that was accepted by the OP. – Ben Jan 21 '15 at 23:19
  • @ben I don't know anything about Dark Souls 2 and can't really comment. – badp Jan 21 '15 at 23:55
  • I can verify that the accepted answer is incorrect. – Ben Jan 22 '15 at 0:02
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    @Ben I know DS2, and I see how wrong that answer is. Nuked. – Invader Skoodge Jan 22 '15 at 15:01
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    Why not make a flag for this very problem. – Virusboy Jan 26 '15 at 22:12
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    "clearly you need to disable images in your browser or view source! Who doesn't do that." I don't, if i do i potentially miss cute Shoujo Ai/Yuri Images like this, this and this – Memor-X Jan 27 '15 at 3:18
  • "This link won't work for non-10kers" Good thing there aren't many of those then... – Pharap Jan 29 '15 at 2:51
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No. Accepted answers show what worked for the asker, and can't be changed. Votes show the community's opinion, which is sometimes different from the asker's.

I know it is a little frustrating, especially given how much power the community has to change almost any other aspect of a post, but accept votes are protected.

It should be clear to anyone hitting that page that, although it's accepted, the top answer is not correct.

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    Sometimes people accept the first answer they see and that seems to work, and then never return even if it didn't actually work. – pronvit Jan 27 '15 at 23:33
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Yes, accepted answers can be deleted so that the highest-voted answer will be at the top instead. This came up on MSE before.

Can trusted users delete accepted answers with a negative score?

The thing is that moderators technically aren't supposed to do this to legitimate answers that just happen to be wrong.

Normal users with 20k+ rep can cast delete votes for any reason though.

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