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In this question, the answer answers the question posed in the question text. But the question posed in the question title is actually different, and may also be interesting. What are best practices in this situation?

  1. Edit question title, possibly ask the 'title question' as a new question?

  2. Consider the answer incomplete?

  3. Something else?

Context, and my own thoughts: Usually, I would not hesitate to follow route 1, but in this case I am both the one who asked and answered the question, so I thought it would be best to check up on best-practices. To avoid misunderstandings, I want to note that two years passed from the time I asked the question until I answered it. At the time when I wrote the title, it did not occur to me that the title might be conceived as misleading.

To be clear, I am not asking specifically what I should do in this particular instance, but rather what the best practice is when there is a discrepancy between question title and text, along with an answer that is aimed at the question text. In other words, disregard the fact that I happen to have posted both the question and the answer.

Somewhat related questions have been asked on meta before: Editing a contradiction between the title and text of a question and Retitling Questions: a modest proposal.

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    $\begingroup$ Since the question text is answered and title isn't route 1 seems the way to go. $\endgroup$
    – kingW3
    Jul 4, 2017 at 9:43
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    $\begingroup$ So, why did you ask a question in the body that wasn't the question in the title in the first place? $\endgroup$
    – Gerry Myerson
    Jul 4, 2017 at 12:56
  • $\begingroup$ @GerryMyerson I would argue that events do not naturally flow in that direction. Rather, the question body would not fit in the title, so I had to remove some parts. In hindsight, I may have removed the wrong parts. $\endgroup$
    – Jonas Dahlbæk
    Jul 4, 2017 at 14:18
  • $\begingroup$ @amWhy This question was clearly inspired by my particular situation, but I did not intend to ask the very specific question "What should I do in my situation". I intended this question to be more general, as it was originally stated. I rolled it back to that form. $\endgroup$
    – Jonas Dahlbæk
    Jul 5, 2017 at 16:40
  • $\begingroup$ @Jonas I did not realize that the original question was asked two years ago; I clicked on the link, and read the post, but don't usually attend to the date stamp. I'm sorry for the misunderstanding. Re: the roll back, you make a good point, and it makes sense to roll-back to the question you asked. $\endgroup$
    – amWhy
    Jul 5, 2017 at 16:45
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    $\begingroup$ Maybe you should post a comment to your math.stackexchange question where you ask yourself if it is ok to change the title. In another comment you should tell you that this is ok. Then you should change the title of the post, accept your answer and post this solution as an answer to this meta.math.stackexchange question. Then you accept this answer and everything is consistent, every question has accepted answers. $\endgroup$
    – miracle173
    Jul 6, 2017 at 0:45
  • $\begingroup$ I feel it would be unacceptable for anyone other than @JonasDahlbæk to post an answer to this meta question $\endgroup$
    – Alexander Gruber Mod
    Jul 6, 2017 at 19:00
  • $\begingroup$ If there is still no answer in 2 years, I will. I guess someone should introduce an appropriate ambiguity in the title... $\endgroup$
    – Jonas Dahlbæk
    Jul 6, 2017 at 19:21

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