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Both of the following questions also deal with the same issue, I don't believe this is a duplicate as this question describes steps to create the situation described in the first when not doing a merge (as discussed in the second)

Reference 1: https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/48513/question-answered-after-it-was-closed

Reference 2: Why was an answer allowed on a question that was merged into another one?

I was able to reproduce this problem myself. Here is how I did it.

I was in the middle of editing a question when it was closed.

I hit the save button and I got the banner saying I could not post because the question was closed.

A comment notification appeared and I clicked on it to look at the comment.

I hit the back button on the browser.

I was now able to hit the save button and post my answer.

Here is the question in question: Dictionary<TKey, TValue> override Indexer and FindEntry


In reference to the grace period I believe this is a bug because the banner came up and I could not post the answer. After moving off the page and coming back I was able to post the answer.

So the bug is one of two things

  • I should not have gotten the banner when I tried to post the first time

  • I should not have been able to post when I returned to the page

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  • 3
    This is probably not a bug. There's a grace period during which time people can still post answers, if they clicked the "Answer" button before the question was closed. If you believe this is a bug anyway, please state clearly why.
    – user102937
    Dec 29, 2012 at 1:22
  • @RobertHarvey - Is that clear? Sorry if those points were inferred prior.
    – Hogan
    Dec 29, 2012 at 1:31
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    I've seen these 'ninja' answers in the past, I always attributed it to some kind of transaction race that was inevitable in high use settings. Interesting to finally see it revealed.
    – user50049
    Dec 29, 2012 at 5:09
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    @Tim another way is to enable the button again via dev tools, did it just now. Jul 16, 2013 at 10:58
  • @gnat this has nothing to do with merging
    – Hogan
    May 14, 2014 at 13:45
  • @Hogan did you read the answer there? "We don't block answers that are "in flight" at the time of close, the window for answering -- assuming you've started composing an answer before the question is closed -- is about 4 hours..."
    – gnat
    May 14, 2014 at 14:55
  • @gnat - Yes the answer is the same, but the use case is slightly different.
    – Hogan
    May 14, 2014 at 15:01

1 Answer 1

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This is actually an old fix at work, put in place to prevent people from getting frustrated over not being able to post an answer as a question was closed 'out from under them'. If you have a saved draft of an answer, you have a short time that you can still post it even if the question has been closed.

By and by, we got smarter about this - we now warn you if a question has been closed or if new answers have been posted as you're typing in an effort to save you from finishing something that you might ultimately chuck. We now disable the answer submit button once the system informs you that no new answers will be accepted.

However, at least for now, if you're really determined to post something you have saved as a draft, you're still able to do so provided you can make your browser post the form. You'll notice that I commented on this last year while completely forgetting about a fix that went in back in the UserVoice days, nearly five years ago.

I don't know how long this behavior will remain by design, but for now it does.

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