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The asker of the question Einen über den Durst trinken substantially edited the question in retrospect (i.e., after the question was answered). Now the question has an answer that answers something that had been originally asked but was removed from the question.

How shall we deal with this? Should the question be rolled back to its original state? I would prefer this.


Was ist zu tun, wenn jemand eine Frage nachträglich erheblich verändert?

In der Frage Einen über den Durst trinken hat der Fragesteller seine ursprüngliche Frage nachträglich (nämlich nachdem bereits Antworten verfasst wurden) inhaltlich erheblich verändert. Nun steht dort eine Antwort, die etwas beantwortet, was ursprünglich zwar gefragt wurde, jetzt aber nicht mehr in der Frage steht.

Wie ist damit umzugehen? Soll die Frage auf den Urzustand zurückgesetzt werden? Ich wäre dafür.

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  • Relevant question on Meta Stack Exchange: Exit strategies for “chameleon questions”
    – Wrzlprmft Mod
    Jan 21, 2016 at 15:00
  • 1
    Also related: How to deal with questions that change
    – user9551
    Jan 21, 2016 at 18:30
  • @Hubert with all due respect, but your permission is not needed. By posting, you agreed to the terms of CC-BY-SA, edit permission implied. Regarding the actual point, I'm not personally bothered by reading german postings or having to switch mid-paragraph. I think I recall that this rule is in place to allow Community Managers to understand what's going on in any Meta at any time. You're basically obstructing "law enforcement" right now, and rely on third parties to rectify the issue, which is beyond cosmetics. I suppose this is a strategy, but it might not be a sustainable one. Jan 21, 2016 at 19:43
  • No hard feelings tho - have a nice evening :) Jan 21, 2016 at 19:43

1 Answer 1

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Questions

In my opinion, whenever a user fundamentally alters his question's core points, and one or more well-received answers have been posted already (or are about to be posted), the question should be rolled back to the last revision that still captures the original content.

This is legal under the terms of the CC-BY-SA license the user agreed to when he or she posted the content, and justified because other posts are depending on the integrity of the question. By spending effort, the dependant posters have earned a right to keep a question intact. This is also valid for duplicates pointing to this question.

For questions that have not gathered dependant posts yet or are not about to, the edit should be judged by the community by whether the new revision is a good question in its own right, under the srcutiny of regular community processes.

In addition, in both cases the user should be notified that for entirely different or follow-up question, a new question should be posted instead of heavily altering or replacing the original question.

Answers

The replacement or fundamental modification of any well-received answer shall be rolled back. Replacements of any other answers should be subject to the normal community process for malformed or irrelevant answers (voting, flagging).


Definitions

  • Any post that is not deleted, on hold or closed and has a score >= 3 is considered well-received
  • All answers and questions are considered posts/postings, but comments aren't

Please feel encouraged to discuss any and all parameters of this proposal.

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  • Very good answers shall be defined as accepted answers – …
    – chirlu
    Jan 22, 2016 at 20:15
  • @chirlu elaborate please Jan 23, 2016 at 22:34
  • Accepted answers quite often are rather bad. (Not surprisingly, considering that they are chosen by a single person, and on non-SO sites often the one who is least able to judge the quality of the answers.)
    – chirlu
    Jan 24, 2016 at 10:38
  • How is this relevant to the problem at hand? By definition this is the one that solved the askers problem. Can't be ignored, especially since democratically chosen answers would be protected aswell. Jan 24, 2016 at 10:52
  • very good answers shall be defined as positively scoring. Seriously though. Posts are not supposed to be vandalized, neither by random people nor by their "owners".
    – Vogel612
    Jan 25, 2016 at 9:38
  • I simplified the rules for answers following community input. The sole criterion is now "well-received". Jan 25, 2016 at 10:29
  • I don’t think well-received should start at >=1, I think >= 5 is a better mark.
    – Jan
    Jan 25, 2016 at 14:06
  • @Jan I copied from the question badges. 5 feels arbitrary, why not 1 or 20? Jan 25, 2016 at 21:55
  • @hiergiltdiestfu Because 20 is humungous for German.SE and 1 is like every question. I mean, okay, of course we can say technically any question, but then I kind of dislike the well received bit.
    – Jan
    Jan 25, 2016 at 22:11
  • @Jan ok, gonna 3 with 3. (see what I did there? :D) Jan 28, 2016 at 12:43

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