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I have just added an answer to a question that, shortly after posting my answer, I realised is probably a duplicate of this other question, as suggested in the comments, and I flagged it as such. My answer overlaps partially with one of the answers in the duplicate target. What should I do with my answer? These options occur to me:

  • Delete it from the (suspected) duplicate and repost it under the other question.
  • Delete it altogether.
  • Leave as is.
  • Leave the current one and repost to the other one (editing in such a way to avoid the overlap).
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  • $\begingroup$ Have you checked to see whether this question of yours is a duplicate? I would think that the situation you describe must have already come up some time before now. $\endgroup$
    – Gerry Myerson
    Commented Jan 26 at 20:48
  • $\begingroup$ I would also have thought so, but nothing came up in my search. $\endgroup$
    – Anakhand
    Commented Jan 26 at 22:14
  • $\begingroup$ OK, I'll post an answer then. $\endgroup$
    – Gerry Myerson
    Commented Jan 26 at 22:28
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    $\begingroup$ Is "Leave as is and repost it under the other question" an option? $\endgroup$
    – peterwhy
    Commented Jan 27 at 0:20
  • $\begingroup$ @peterwhy Yeah that should also be an option I suppose. $\endgroup$
    – Anakhand
    Commented Jan 27 at 8:30

2 Answers 2

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My vote goes to your first-listed option, but taking care to note the overlap with the earlier answer at the target.

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In the end, I ended up deleting my answer and posting it under a new, self-answered question, and posting a link to it in a comment. The reasons for this are:

  • If I remove the overlap with the existing answer on the target duplicate, the rest of my answer is kind of beyond the scope of the original question.
  • My answer answered a related, general question that is nonetheless not a strict generalization of the original question and I believe is interesting in its own right.
  • I have looked for duplicates for my new question. There are many related posts, a few of them are concrete special cases, and one is a generalization, but none of them answer this question exactly.
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