How to add a long update to one's question?

Question

I just wrote an answer to one of my own questions in which I essentially gave a partial, incomplete attempt at solving the question I asked (which had received zero replies so far).

I chose to post that as an answer rather than as an "update" on the original question for mainly two reasons :

• First, it is an (incomplete) answer which I think will be of help in solving the initial problem. So it can be thought of similarly as when users write answers which are "too long to be a comment" (I don't know what is the consensus of the community on that, though).
• Second, the original question was already rather long, and adding my new attempt to the question's body would make the post even longer and discourage most users from reading through it, which is the opposite of what I want. It also makes the exposition clearer and the question less "noisy" (in case my attempt is misguided).

Either way, I came here to ask : What is the best way to add a "significant" update to a question I asked ? ("significant" here means "long and possibly a good lead to an answer") Edit the question to add the update regardless of its length ? Post it as answer ? Ask a separate question about it ? Something else ?

Thanks in advance for your replies !

Answer 1

As long as no Answer has been posted, or only the one that you provided yourself, I think you have considerable flexibility in how you might approach this.

The goal should be to make a Question (as well as an Answer if one is added) as well-written as possible, as accessible to an audience of future Readers as one can manage. It isn't wrong to target your writing to an audience of a certain level, but you might take yourself as the index case.

It can certainly happen that when one poses a problem and undertakes to write a partial solution, over time the obstacle to a complete solution becomes clearer, and thoughts about improving the attack are worth sharing. In many cases this will best be handled by updating the self-Answer, esp. if there are new results (special cases, narrowing of search for counterexamples, etc.).

The point is to keep the Question itself in a coherent and literate shape. Easier said than done, I realize. But the impulse to update the Question with such insights might be misplaced. The corner case I'd be especially sympathetic about for updating the Question is when one realizes that the Question (not yet answered by others) was based largely on a misunderstanding of some kind.

I glanced at your Question, and I feel that it could be improved by self-editing. Conciseness in stating a problem that can be resolved by reasoned mathematical argument is a virtue (think of the kernel of the problem formulation as a setup plus a goal), and adding context for your interest in the problem is also a virtue (but not at the expense of "noisy" verbage). A little context goes a long way to alerting Readers what kind of responses could be helpful to you.