<p>Accepted means accepted by the original poster (OP) of the question: that's an SE-wide definition easy to understand. </p>

<p>The main consequence of good answers not being accepted is some lost reputation for those who posted those answers. </p>

<p>Not what you are talking about, but I will add that the main consequence of the best answers not being accepted, but some other answer being accepted, is also some lost reputation for those who posted them. Here "best" can be highest voted (community verdict) or just your personal view of what is best.</p>

<p>Win some, lose some: it is only a game. Like many relatively active people here, I can find several answers of mine that were the only answer and/or the highest voted answer but were not accepted. Oh well, I don't care. Who should care and why? </p>

<p>If you see threads where someone lost out because of lack of acceptance, and there are probably hundreds if not thousands, your upvote adding 10 to a reputation is worth 2/3 as much as the OP's acceptance adding to 15, and two such upvotes from two people are worth more. That's the way that the community shows favour. </p>

<p>I'll add also giving bounties as a way to right mild wrongs. </p>

<p>In short, <strong>acceptance by the OP and community approval by upvoting and bounties are quite separate and different roads to rising reputation. There is no need to blur the difference by asking for something in between.</strong> </p>

<p>The moderators must speak for themselves, but my wild guess is that they wouldn't want this responsibility either. <strong>It's not the job of moderators to decide what is best or even what is correct.</strong> </p>
