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During review I stumbled across this question flagged as a duplicate. While the question pointed to is related, I felt that an answer that addressed the OP's issue be more helpful than a simple "No you can't do that" when actually you can! My attempt to help resulted in an accusation of providing a link-only answer.The comment trail under my answer has been since deleted by a moderator. What remained has been reproduced below for those who can't see it as it's been since deleted:

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My question: Is what I call a combination answer actually a link-only answer?

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  • And you're referring to my deleted post... why?
    – Thomas Ward Mod
    Commented Mar 19, 2018 at 14:02
  • FWIW I posted that comment yesterday, and when looking back at it, I identified that I agreed with your assessment of the state of it being an answer or not - hence why the comments were removed. Not sure if those discussion points actually require a further discussion (my two cents, just saying)
    – Thomas Ward Mod
    Commented Mar 19, 2018 at 14:03
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    @ThomasWard Because the comment trail under my question was deleted.
    – Elder Geek
    Commented Mar 19, 2018 at 14:04
  • refer to my last message, and have patience, because an edit sometimes is useful. *points at the comment trail, then at the other comment he posted here*
    – Thomas Ward Mod
    Commented Mar 19, 2018 at 14:04
  • @ThomasWard pardon my confusion. So If I'm understanding you correctly, upon further review you determined that my answer was an answer. That would be useful answer to this question in and of itself would it not?
    – Elder Geek
    Commented Mar 19, 2018 at 14:07
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    I determined it's a 'half answer' and am erring on the side of leaving it alone. This being said, I still think that your answer could be expanded, or that you could flag the question being asked as a duplicate of one of the questions you point at since we now know what the actual question is. My opinions still stand that I don't believe it's a 100% complete answer because it doesn't give the instructions to remove the binary drivers and install the open source ones, and that it could probably be closed as a duplicate instead.
    – Thomas Ward Mod
    Commented Mar 19, 2018 at 14:09
  • ... but because you posted this to meta it's up to the community to decide for themselves where to stand on this, making my opinion wholly irrelevant.
    – Thomas Ward Mod
    Commented Mar 19, 2018 at 14:10
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    @ThomasWard IMHO as a member of this community, your opinion is as relevant as anyone else's.
    – Elder Geek
    Commented Mar 19, 2018 at 15:32

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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If you remove the hyperlinks, there is still useful information, so, by definition, it is not a link-only answer.

There may be a case for adding some information from the links to your answer in case of future link death, but that's up to you. I certainly don't reproduce material from every source I refer to in my answers, but whether I do reproduce something depends on my assessment of how integral that information is to the answer and how likely the link is to die. If I'm referring to highly upvoted posts on Ask Ubuntu, as your answer does, I assume their chances of survival are at least as good as my post's.

Looking at your deleted comment

IMHO A link only answer includes only a link

I felt I ought to add that as far as I know, a post that has multiple links but has no useful information when the markdown formatting is stripped is just as much a link-only answer as a post that has only one link and no useful information besides the link. But even link titles may be informative.

A side note for those who are not familiar with the details of the close voting system: it is possible to close questions as duplicates of multiple questions, so it's not necessary to post answers saying "your question is a duplicate of [this](link) and [this](link)". I would flag such an answer for deletion.

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    I couldn't have said it better myself. I try very hard to consider link death in crafting my "combination" answers. I'm always hesitant to duplicate the work of others on this site as since my answer relies on their answers it seems unfair to me to not take the opportunity to hopefully deliver them some well deserved upvotes (which reduces the chance of link death) I suppose it's possible (but unlikely) that help.ubuntu.com or wiki.ubuntu.com could go down. If that were to happen I would hope that a member of the community would drop me a "link is dead" comment so I could fix it. Cheers!
    – Elder Geek
    Commented Mar 19, 2018 at 15:43
  • @ElderGeek that's a great point. I prefer to give credit too
    – Zanna Mod
    Commented Mar 19, 2018 at 15:49
  • @ElderGeek I made some additions to my answer and I'm notifying you because you accepted the earlier version and may want to reconsider now. I try not to edit my answers after they are accepted but I felt I had missed an important point. Feel free to edit my answer or comment if I have misunderstood.
    – Zanna Mod
    Commented Mar 20, 2018 at 10:46
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    Thank you for providing clarity on this important topic. The accept stands. My comment was unclear (that's an admission, not an excuse). Clearly Link1, Link2, Link3 is no more an answer than Link0. Context is needed to provide clarity. I concur.
    – Elder Geek
    Commented Mar 20, 2018 at 12:16

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