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Why was my question Installing python: who is deadsnakes and why should I trust them? closed as a duplicate of Are PPAs safe to add to my system and what are some "red flags" to watch out for? even though I have linked to it when asking and explained why it doesn't answer my question? Was it really possible to trivially infer from there everything that was said in the great answer I received?

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    FWIW, I voted to close but not as a duplicate. I do not think that convincing random users of the trustworthiness of random PPAs is on-topic on this site. "Why should I trust them?" That's for you to find out for yourself, because otherwise the question just devolves to "why should I trust you, a random user on Ask Ubuntu?"
    – muru
    Commented Mar 23, 2022 at 11:35

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I believe the reason your question was closed is that you asked about a specific ppa, but this was already answered in a generic way.

The reasoning here is that from the generic information about green and red flags for PPAs, you should be able to extrapolate this information and apply it to your specific case.

For instance, the PPA deadsnakes has a Github page, which is updated daily.

In addition, the PPA itself is very active. There is detailed information, support for both 18.04 and 20.04, and the main author (Felix Krull) has been a member since 2009.

All this points to a legitimate and good supported PPA.

Imagine if the same question is asked for each and every PPA in existence - this would give hundreds, maybe even thousands of questions with basically the same answer: Engage in your own thorough due diligence.

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    For instance, the ppa deadsnakes has a Github page, which is updated daily. Nothing (that I can see at least, maybe I missed it?) in the "duplicate" indicates to search on GitHub for this, nor shows what should I do to verify that the purported GitHub page really is the source of the ppa (instead of someone trolling).
    – Pedro A
    Commented Mar 22, 2022 at 20:07
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    In addition, the ppa itself is very active - Nothing (that I can see at least) in the "duplicate" shows how to find the page you linked and how to interpret it.
    – Pedro A
    Commented Mar 22, 2022 at 20:08
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    Actually it looks like someone just edited the first answer in the duplicate to add some of these points, hahaha cool
    – Pedro A
    Commented Mar 22, 2022 at 20:09
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    Maybe the root of the problem is that the generic question wasn't answered well enough?
    – Pedro A
    Commented Mar 22, 2022 at 20:10
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    You may indeed be right - and some of those things may be hard to describe exactly, since it can vary between ppa's. But I guess that adding something about the general activity level, and also the link to transparent sources (like Github) could indeed improve the duplicate answer.
    – Artur Meinild
    Commented Mar 22, 2022 at 20:19
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I would guess that the reason your question was closed as a duplicate was that either it was the same as the duplicated question or else the people judging it did not read either your question, the duplicated question, or both. The reason may just be similar titles, I see a lot of questions judged as duplicate just because they have similar titles.

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