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It was one of those days where I was too high on my coffee and had 1 too many cancer sticks, and I gave a stupid answer to a good question.
And StackOverflow community responded well, fast and critically.
I started getting downvotes on my answer every 1 hour. Well I deserved it.

So I thought lets do the right thing, I updated my answer by confessing to my sins, tested the question and showed the test results to further prove i was wrong, and ended the update with the right answer (obviously it matched with the accepted answer).

But life has not changed a bit! I still keep getting downvotes and it is bleeding my rep dry.
So my question is, how do I cure this disease that is rotting me inside out?

(I would not like to try deleting that post as it should remind me - and everyone else - of the grave injustice committed to the question. Btw, will it further reduce my rep if I vote to delete it?)

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  • 9
    you can delete your answer anytime.
    – Lucifer
    Aug 17, 2012 at 14:51
  • Deleting an answer will not create a drop in your rep.
    – Gaffi
    Aug 17, 2012 at 15:05
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    As much as I admire your desire to wear a Scarlet Letter for your poor answer, it's actually a more grave injustice to leave useless or incorrect information up on the site. The best way to attone for your sins would be to delete the response entirely. You could also consider asking Joel Spolsky to put your answer on a spike at the gates of Stack Overflow as a message to "Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here With Insufficient Knowledge" :)
    – mclark1129
    Aug 17, 2012 at 15:29
  • 2
    meta.stackoverflow.com/badges/36/peer-pressure
    – Gnoupi
    Aug 17, 2012 at 15:49

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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You can delete it. That will make all rep loss from downvotes go away.

In theory, it would be nice if all the downvoters came along, saw that the answer has been corrected, and removed their downvote.

In practice, however, that rarely happens and isn't viewed as a priority by the founding fathers, either.

Is it okay to provide a new answer with the correct content? I don't know; in this case, I would say it's fair. It might be worth a try. (Edit: Anna Lear says it's okay in the comments below, you can point to that if anybody gives you trouble.)

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    On the other hand, having a wrong answer with downvotes is sort of how the system is supposed to work. Downvotes are supposed to reflect the fact that the answer is wrong. That said, removing a wrong answer and reposting a correct one would be acceptable. Doing that is only a problem if you're deleting/reposting the exact same thing to clear downvotes.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Aug 17, 2012 at 14:55
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    @Anna cool; I wasn't sure about deleting and posting a new answer, good to have confirmation that this is okay.
    – Pekka
    Aug 17, 2012 at 14:56
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I assume you mean this answer

I gave a stupid answer to a good question.

Actually its not a good question. The OP did something silly, got a compiler warning, missed it and wondered why they didn't get a compiler error.

I would not like to try deleting that post as it should remind me - and everyone else - of the grave injustice committed to the question

Leaving content that you know is wrong doesn't help any future visitors. Even fixing it in this case seemed pointless since your answer doesn't add anything to the highest voted and accepted answer by Jon Skeet.

Btw, will it further reduce my rep if I vote to delete it?

No, the opposite. Yours and the downvoters rep will be refunded and you'll get a peer pressure badge

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