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I was wondering what is the correct approach in case I ask a question and, through the comments and answers other people give, I realize that my question wasn't formulated correctly, or even that I asked the wrong question, because I asked one thing when in fact I wanted to ask another.

In this case, I would like to reformulate the entire question, changing the title and everything. What should I do? Edit the current question (and put a commentary explaining why I changed the whole text) or start a new question, and put a link in the old one to the new one?

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2 Answers 2

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You should start a new question. Whatever you do, don't edit your original question so that it invalidates existing answers.

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  • Ok, thanks! And what about linking the old question to the new one? I mean, just so people who enter the page know that the question wasn't abandoned, it just.. changed to a new location.
    – dsetton
    Feb 19, 2010 at 12:34
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Depends.

If there are already answers, which answer the original question, I'd let it be and ask a new question.

If there are no answers, you can either

  • delete the old question, ask a new one
  • edit the question

Which solution you choose depends on how much different the new question is from the old one, I think it's hard to answer this without any examples.

About comments: I don't think you have to explain it in the comments, if someone is interested he/she could just look up the edit history. Outdated information isn't usually interesting for most of your readers.

It could be nice though, to reply in a comment to the person who found out about your mistake, just to let them know you appreciate their comment.

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