flag a question as answered.

How can I flag a question as answered ?

Answer 1

[DGM]

A question is "answered" when it has at least one answer. Once the answer exists, nothing more needs to be done.

A question has "accepted" (green) status when it has an answer which has been accepted. If it's a question you asked, there should be a button that lets you accept a given answer.

If it's not your question, but it's had an unaccepted answer for a sufficient period of time, a moderator can (at their discretion) accept an answer. If you see such an old answer and would like to petition to have it accepted, you can flag the answer and suggest that it should be accepted. There may be some disagreement over whether it should be accepted, but that's how you could bring attention to it.

For clarity, moderators can only accept an answer on behalf of OP after a given time frame. If it's a fresh question, it's still exclusively up to OP to accept an answer.

On the other hand, if you're asking "how do I communicate that this question has been answered a bazillion times already?", then probably the most helpful way would be to provide links to one or more relevant answers which you think are worthwhile. In my opinion, peppering the forum with human-curated direct links is more future proof than relying on searchability.

Otherwise, feel free to elaborate on the specific case at hand.

Answer 2

[John D'Errico]

While DGM gave a very complete answer, worthy of acceptance in my eyes, I think, from a look at one of the other questions from @Manolis and their comments on that question, that they want to actually close a question once it has been answered. (I did upvote the answer by @DGM, as I think it is a complete and accurate answer to the question posed.) As such, the only reason I am posting a separate answer is because I wonder if the question really asks what they want to know.

For example, on this question:

https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/answers/2181292-where-to-find-image_ref-pdf-file?s_tid=prof_contriblnk

I see the comment:

"How can I flag those answers as closing my question?"

And the response to this is that a question does not get "closed" once answered, in the sense that the question will continue to be visible always, even if an answer has been accepted. This is important in the sense that others will often be able to make use of an answered question, learning from the answer(s) offered, solving a problem they have. That way the same question does not need to get asked repeatedly, and it makes Answers a searchable forum.

Allowing an existing question to still get future answers, even when an answer has been accepted by the OP also allows others to add answers as MATLAB evolves. It is not at all uncommon that a new feature in a later release of MATLAB will solve an old problem in a beautifully succinct way.

In SOME cases, we see a poster wish to remove a question once they have gotten an answer that solves their problem. Usually this seems to arise because they have posted what is essentially a homework question, and do not wish their teacher to find out how they did their homework. Sadly, the response is the question, once it has gotten an answer, will then remain regardless of any potential embarrasment. Again, the policy of Answers is to leave questions alive and viewable once answered. I don't think this is the case on the question I linked, so I am not at all sure what is the issue at hand. I hope that @Manolis will clarify their question.

[Walter Roberson]

Posters can always ask to have their question deleted. People who have posted Answers can signal agreement by deleting their Answers; once all of the Answers are gone, the original poster can close or delete the question. As long as there are remaining Answers, either someone has not noticed the request yet or else they disagree with closing the question.