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Sometimes I will come across a "warning" on an answer or question. Sort of.

On my super-old first answer that I answered, I got this "warning":

Whilst this may theoretically answer the question, it would be preferable to include the essential parts of the answer here, and provide the link for reference.

I thought that was just a normal comment on my question, so I ignored it.

Later then I was getting more involved into Askubuntu. That's when I saw the same message across low-quality posts. Again and again.

Next I received another comment warning me to accept more questions that I asked. This time I took it more seriously (although the poster wasn't a moderator) because I saw the same message before on somebody else's question.

Recently I also saw a warning about using bounties correctly somewhere on both StackOverFlow and AskUbuntu.

The same thing in common on those warnings is that they seem to be created by a robot (no offense if you the reader created them).

I know this may sound like a stupid question, but where do these repeated "warning" comments come from, and why do people want to use them when they can make up their own?

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    ALL those comments are written by us, very much humans (Sorry Jorge and George. :P). We are lazy, so we use pro forma comments. See the answer below.
    – Mahesh
    Jun 21, 2012 at 5:12
  • Sorry for that... But seeing them appearing everywhere really freaks me out. Jun 21, 2012 at 6:02
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    may be we should add 'this is not a bot comment' at the end of all proforma comments. :P
    – Mahesh
    Jun 21, 2012 at 6:27

2 Answers 2

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It is from our Pre-written Pro forma userscript comments:

An advice:

Don't ignore such comments from other community members , Review your post if you got such comments. If you have doubts about it ,contact the commentor in chat

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  • @Eliah Kagan: thanks for the edit .link option is not available in mobile version :(
    – Tachyons
    Jun 21, 2012 at 3:51
  • use plain markdown, silly. [link text](http://my-link.watever)
    – Mahesh
    Jun 21, 2012 at 5:10
  • @tachyons Thanks for the answer! Before I will freak out when I see those kind of comments. I won't anymore. Jun 21, 2012 at 6:26
  • BTW I can't find the bounty warning on that page Jun 21, 2012 at 22:26
  • Which page? Which post?
    – Tachyons
    Jun 22, 2012 at 1:23
  • I mean the Pro-Forma userscript page. And I updated my super-old-first-answer. Jun 22, 2012 at 1:39
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You can avoid those specific comments by editing and fixing your answers to not be just links to blogs or forums. For example your first old answer links to a post with a broken image, no wonder it's getting downvotes!

I use these on Low Quality Posts as well, an answer that is just a link is basically a person going into google and then pasting a link, which is what we don't really do here, we strive to be the place where people end up after searching in Google, and having the information in a post that can be edited and improved on over time (and kept up to date!) is always preferable to blogs and forums.

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