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The choice of the best software which fits my needs is quite subjective.

So when I ask for a software recommendation, the best answer for the asker (= my elected software) isn't necessarily the best one for the community (= the answer with the most up-votes).

Is there a recommended guideline for accepting questions? One of the aims of a Stack Exchange website is to answer questions that can help other people later. If I accept an answer at the opposite of the community vote, there is a risk of mislead future visitors isn't it?

Furthermore, there is potentially several answers I would like to accept.

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This should be easy — if the answer is well-written, accept the software you actually chose!

The "accepted answer" function simply indicates which answer best helped the original author specifically. I've not been a big fan of this feature for a long time — essentially giving the author the ability to override top-most answer despite the vote — but on this site it actually makes a modicum of sense.

You are asking for a recommendation of software. Pick the review that best met the criteria you laid out.

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    I would like to encourage everyone who accepts an answer to leave a comment at the accepted answer with a (small) explanation. Especially when it is against the community vote.
    – Bernhard
    Feb 14, 2014 at 20:03
  • @Robert, Hmm, However, future visitors will be having the exact same question. Why should the preference of the original author have more weightage over the preference of future visitors who are asking the same exact question? Indeed, wouldn't the preference of future visitors supposed to have more weightage since their decisions are more up-to-date compared to the possibly obsolete decision made by the original author? (And of course future visitors having the exact same question couldn't repost the question due to the duplicate-question rule.)
    – Pacerier
    Jan 5, 2015 at 8:23
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It is generally subjective based to select the right answer. Actually you should take the answer which helps you most. If a user thinks another answer helped him more then he can vote up the answer. Sometimes answers with more up votes are better, than the as accepted marked answer. I do not think that a user will be misled, because of an accepted answer. Each software has its advantages and disadvantages. Therefore the users asking here are looking for a software which fulfill their requirements. Based on this the most will accept the answer and vote up for the answer.

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You're going to receive answers that meet your specific stated constraints to varying degrees, this is why we ask you to indicate the importance of each. The green mark next to the answer just says "I liked this the most, based on the needs I stated".

It's a nice starting point for future visitors, but I'm quite certain that most would check out (at least) all of the highly voted recommendations to form their own informed opinion before installing anything.

Imagine a big sandwich that you couldn't quite figure out where to take the first bite. That green check mark is generally a good starting point for hungry future visitors. Don't put too much weight behind it, or thought into it.

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