Timeline for Why can't you use the same answer for multiple questions?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
24 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan 1, 2017 at 12:06 | history | tweeted | twitter.com/AskUbuntu/status/815529665662251009 | ||
| Dec 28, 2016 at 18:33 | comment | added | Mast | @Mitch In fairness, personal ethical rules are useless as moderation guidelines if nobody knows about them. | |
| Dec 28, 2016 at 18:30 | comment | added | Mitch Mod | @Mast That's one of my Ethical Rules :) | |
| Dec 28, 2016 at 16:17 | comment | added | Mast | "AFAIK, Using the same answer to multiple questions requires attribution even if it is your own." Do you have a source for that @Mitch ? That sounds like an academics rule, not like a SE rule. | |
| Dec 19, 2016 at 23:28 | comment | added | Timothy Zorn | I flagged it like Mitch said I should. | |
| Dec 19, 2016 at 18:18 | comment | added | WinEunuuchs2Unix | I remember the two answers because I had to review the two questions for duplicate close voting... and the duplicate question flag was raised by OP here who posted the two duplicate answers. | |
| Dec 19, 2016 at 12:58 | comment | added | terdon Mod | @ByteCommander the same answer very, very rarely fits two questions perfectly. It might just take a trivial edit to make it so, but that edit makes a difference. At the very least, it stops the automatic flag from being raised. | |
| Dec 19, 2016 at 12:52 | comment | added | Byte Commander Mod | @JacobVlijm The vote to close would be more appropriate than a copied answer in a dupe question - yes - but I still think that a quick (valid, high-quality) answer and getting it closed later is better than leaving it open for a while without reaction until someone finally closes it. Additionally, the OP who copied his answer here had 101 rep, so although he had the flag privilege (15 rep), he did not have the VTC privilege (250 rep) yet and might therefore not be familiar with the close reasons etc. Deleting such a user's perfectly valid answer just because the Q is a dupe is too harsh IMHO. | |
| Dec 19, 2016 at 9:35 | vote | accept | Timothy Zorn | ||
| Dec 19, 2016 at 9:30 | answer | added | terdonMod | timeline score: 24 | |
| Dec 18, 2016 at 21:20 | comment | added | Jacob Vlijm | @ByteCommander not sure if I understand you correctly, but I see no point at all to answer a dupe question. What is good about that? Better maintain one good answer then creating a bunch of answers. Posting repeated answers is usually just a cheap shot. | |
| Dec 18, 2016 at 10:57 | comment | added | Byte Commander Mod | If I may add my personal $0.02, I agree that highly similar questions that can have the same answers should be flagged or voted to close as duplicate. However, I still believe it's better to have a question answered (and maybe closed later) than not answered. I see no problem with one person posting the same answer multiple times if it perfectly fits each question, or adapting that answer to multiple questions. After all from what I can tell, this was a valid, high-quality answer and as such should not be deleted in any circumstance, even if a flag or VTC would have been more appropriate. | |
| Dec 18, 2016 at 10:45 | comment | added | Mitch Mod | The constant part was in general, and not intended in this case :) | |
| Dec 18, 2016 at 10:41 | comment | added | Timothy Zorn | I do not think doing it once can be considered constant. Should I wait for you to merge these questions, or should the answer be undeleted, so I can add a line linking to my other answer? | |
| Dec 18, 2016 at 10:40 | comment | added | Mitch Mod | AFAIK, Using the same answer to multiple questions requires attribution even if it is your own. Appropriate attribution is linking back to the original question. Answers should always be designed to the question and in fact, it's rare that the same answer would work for many questions. Constantly posting the same answer to multiple questions, may be considered Spam. | |
| Dec 18, 2016 at 10:31 | comment | added | Timothy Zorn | @Mitch, I have flagged the question as a duplicate. In this case, I agree that they should be merged, but I'm sure there are cases in which using the same answer for similar, yet different, questions is correct. However, it seems that your policy is to delete duplicate answers even when they correctly answer the question. So, my posted question still stands: Why can we not reuse the same answer, especially if it correctly answers the question? | |
| Dec 18, 2016 at 10:29 | comment | added | Mitch Mod | If you think its better to merge, then please flag it that way, so we can take a look, and see if its applicable. | |
| Dec 18, 2016 at 10:26 | comment | added | Timothy Zorn | Zanna, my answer is similar to that one, but that one has a lot of extra unnecessary steps and no way for it to only match touchpads. It's a bit awkward for me when I scroll on my mouse and the scrollbar goes in the opposite direction. | |
| Dec 18, 2016 at 10:25 | comment | added | Timothy Zorn | I think it would be better to merge the two questions in this case, since they really are identical. However, I'm sure there are cases where the questions are similar, not identical, and can have the same answer. | |
| Dec 18, 2016 at 10:25 | comment | added | Zanna Mod | it looks a lot like this answer Is there anyway to enable system wide inverse scrolling? | |
| Dec 18, 2016 at 10:23 | comment | added | Mitch Mod | AFAIK, the best way is to mark as duplicate, and not post the same answer to different question. | |
| Dec 18, 2016 at 10:23 | comment | added | Timothy Zorn | Yes, this is my own answer. One of the moderators, Mitch, deleted the question. As far as I can tell, he commonly deletes duplicate answers. | |
| Dec 18, 2016 at 10:22 | comment | added | Mark Kirby | Well, the question here is did you write the answer your self? If you are reposing someone else's answer as yours, that is plagiarism and not allowed but if you wrote it and it fits both questions, then it should not of been removed, you would not be the first to do this. Some may think it is lazy but AFAIK (if the answer is your work) you did not break any rules. | |
| Dec 18, 2016 at 10:15 | history | asked | Timothy Zorn | CC BY-SA 3.0 |