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I write a puzzle, wait for some minutes or hours, and someone finally manages to solve it.

Now, I should award him a green tick rightaw~~ Wait a second... I recall that some people tend to give the green tick in the next day or even couple of days. Should I do the same thing? Is there any best practice when to give a green tick?

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Accept an answer when it is obvious that it is the first fully correct answer

If an answer is (from your point of view) obviously fully correct, you should accept the first such answer (showing that this is the answer that solved your problem). There's no reason to wait, as there's no potential for the accept to change (and people who are looking for unsolved puzzles to solve will want to be able to skip over it upon seeing the green background).

If an answer is "correct" but there's potentially scope for a better or more complete answer (e.g. via adding an explanation that covers all the cases), it may be a good idea to hold off on the accept for a while in case the better answer is posted. (This is the case whether you know there's potential for a better answer, or whether you merely suspect that one might be possible.) It's probably a good idea to accept eventually, though, if no better answer comes along.

If all the answers are wrong and/or incomplete, then obviously, you don't accept any of them.

Note that it's fairly common for an answer to be posted to a puzzle when its author isn't online, and nobody else can accept answers. So, in practice, you often see substantial delays on an answer accept simply because the puzzle author isn't around.

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  • $\begingroup$ Yep, I also agree with this. But, I'm still not sure about OP who deliberately comments something like "Ok, this is correct. I'll accept the answer tomorrow". Should I assume because there may be a possibility of better (more perfect) solution? $\endgroup$
    – athin
    Commented Dec 21, 2018 at 3:29
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    $\begingroup$ @athin People have many reasons for why they accept an answer at certain times. There is one user of puzzling that likes to keep their reputation at round numbers, and factors that into their timing. Note also that you can always re-assign the checkmark. If a better answer comes along, you can remove the check mark from the answer you had accepted, and award it to a different answer instead. This is to further support ais523's assertion that you don't need to wait if there is a post that answers the question well. $\endgroup$
    – GentlePurpleRain Mod
    Commented Dec 21, 2018 at 20:08

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