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I have noticed that very few questions recently seem to have been accepted. In fact in the last three weeks only two answers have been accepted. Obviously nobody can be forced to accept answers which they do not feel answer their question, but I am not sure this is always the case. Some of the recent answers to questions have many up votes and do look 'acceptable'.

Is the problem a lot of new users who do not fully understand the system? If so, is there anything we can do about it? Have other people noticed this problem? And do they think it is a problem (or am I just being irrational?!)? Getting points is only a side effect of a website like this, but without the voting and accepting of good answers it is hard to remain motivated. Even people with very low reputation can accept answers, and yet a quick glance through the users shows that very few do. Why is this? Perhaps people need to be encouraged more to accept the top (or another good) answer, or to edit their question to get more satisfactory answers.

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I think the question and answer system can be confusing to the new user. It is up to us to introduce new users into the community and show them the ropes. If anyone has any ideas on how to make the site more approachable I would love to implement them. – Kris♦ Feb 19 at 1:05
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 Not enough high quality traffic - I hold off answering to give others a chance, but there are many times when I provide an answer because it looks like no-one is going to do anything in time for it to be useful. Too many people who live on mac n' cheese, and are looking for choices. Targeting the Scandinavians and GB gourmets is hard, but it is what is needed to lift the site. The Indians (who should lift the range) who have responded are all Southerners - they are not the source of the "mysteries of Indian cuisine", they do the KFC of Indian cuisine - and I end up doing the answers. – klypos♦ Feb 19 at 2:13
You could try adding in some prompts as in these posts in meta.stackexchange: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2559/… and meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2605/… – Rich Seller Feb 21 at 20:00
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 ultimately though you need a steady supply of new questions. Don't be afraid to ask questions you already know the answer to. i do this regularly on home4film.com, and am pleasantly surprised when others suggest new/better ways – Rich Seller Feb 21 at 20:01
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 I forget to accept answers because I usually am trying to wait for more answers to come in before making a decision. Which comes back to the low traffic issue. Maybe we can suggest in the comments to people things like "looks like a great answer - you should accept this one!" Klypos - You are not a janitor, you know you love it...and you are one of the more knowledgeable people here. :) – Sabrina♦ Mar 8 at 8:04
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Do you know what a dosa is? Not a dosa salts -

So what's this about? http://ask.recipelabs.com/questions/2983/non-sticky-dosa

You might get a clue from this - http://ask.recipelabs.com/questions/2939/share-a-dosa-recipe

There's not enough there to interest the average reader - and it is just a pancake, when all is said and done. What do you do with it, what can you combine with it? Who got it right?

The contributors don't care unless they get 10 cents for telling you ...

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Hmmm... thanks for depressing me further! – Ikkle Becca Feb 19 at 5:35
The place needs some traffic generation, so that people come back out of interest. There's not a lot of new stuff, and it doesn't hit high in searches. There were a few MTurk people hanging around, but those people have lost interest. Perhaps some more MTurk HITs would work. One set to ask questions, another to respond with an original recipe, and to include posting a link on a social networking site when a user makes a post here. And exclude the Indians, because they only come around if you pay them. – klypos♦ Feb 19 at 16:42

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