Etiquette: When is it ok to edit your answer to include information from someone else's?

Question

I have been following this question with interest - History of public/private/protected - and noticed that shortly after a new answer was posted by Neil Butterworth, one of the original answers was updated to include this extra information. I have seen minor clarifications based on other posts before, but never such a wholesale import of another answer.

Was this a reasonable thing to do here? Clearly, wanton cannibalism of other answers isn't reasonable on a site where multiple answers with distinct identities are supposed to compete. But there is an argument to seek to improve one's answer, particularly if a concept mentioned by another may be better phrased or explained.

What are the boundaries that define when its acceptable to incorporate information from other answers into your own?

Edit: Marc Gravell points out that in this case, the datestamps prove the edit came before Neil's answer, so this is a terrible example. But the general question stands.

Answer 1

after a new answer was posted by Neil Butterworth, one of the original answers was updated to include this extra information

If you mean philippe's answer, his edit pre-dates Neil's answer by 4 minutes... "not guilty", I say...

For some questions, it may also be useful / desirable to construct an aggregated answer that brings together the ideas from other answers. I haven't done this myself, but sometimes it works well. I would hope that they include attribution, though.

Edit (this is a joke): I understand the concern of giving the most complete answer. But the point of such sites is to provide a "collaborative answer", through the voting system. ;-p

Answer 2

Joel has said on the podcast that he feels it is perfectly legitimate to find a question with a bunch of half-answers, and combine them into one answer, add a little more polish, and post that. He says it is a great way to earn reputation in a perfectly legitimate way.

From Podcast 023:

I did one of my "just combine other people's answers" into a well-written answer or a more exhaustive answer. And it was just like "What's the difference between a statement and an expression?" That was the question. And you know what, that's what I want. That article, I want that article. You know everybody's going to have questions like this. Newbies will always have the same questions.

Or Podcast 004:

Whaddaya do if you're reading some answers, and the best answer is there, and somewhere else is another answer that's also kinda good, and the combination of them would be great, and you wanna somehow combine these answers in a better answer. In other words, you just want to be an editor, like you're--a lotta the people who have contributed to our transcript pages for this podcast--and thank you all--a lot of them just went in and made a little correction. They just saw something that was obviously a typo, or some case where some previous person who'd been writing the transcript maybe didn't know how to spell someone's name, so they went in and they correct it. How do you do that when you're reading answers on StackOverflow, if you just want to make that little edit, to make that question better?

Answer 3

I have done this only once. My answer had solved the original problem and been accepted, but the OP had asked another question in a comment on my answer. Another user had answered his comment in a new answer in a clean and concise manner, so I simply added his answer to mine (with attribution) and turned mine into a wiki.

I personally see no problem with reusing another answer so long as attribution is given. In such a case, I think the post should be marked as wiki to signify that it is the collaborative work of multiple users. Seems I'm in disagreement with Spolsky on this particular point though.

Answer 4

... distinct identities are supposed to compete.

The point of these sites is not to compete for reputation, it is to answer questions, and be highly relevant to search engine queries. As a result, the collaborative community is the "distinct identity" and the competition is with other sites like Experts Exchange.

It's even better if the highest upvoted answer is accepted, and improved upon either by the author, or other users of sufficient reputation.

If an answer is accepted but it wasn't the highest upvoted, I don't see any problem with incorporating other answers, because that improves the quality. If I Google search and I get a SOFU result, I want to read the accepted answer for all possible relevant bits. I don't want to go through and read the other postings to the question.

Answer 5

I agree with what Jeff has said repeatedly on this matter. It is fine to combine answer parts into a complete answer. The goal is to answer the question for the OP who has probably been reading all along, but I think just as important (or more so even) is to answer it for future users. The ideal user experience should be:

1. User googles their question
2. S[OFU] is the #1 result
3. They go to the a well worded question that is written in a way that is clear matches their problem
4. They look and the top listed answer (or the top one or two if the OP accepted a different one) and it provides the complete and correct answer to their issue.

Answer 6

I know I don't agree with Joel and Jeff on this one. I feel quite strongly that it is rep-whoring, and I think it is detestable. People who attribute the original answers I'd consider better, but only slightly.

I understand why the site/community would want a rolled-up comprehensive answer. I agree it benefits everyone. So yes, I'd like to see such an answer - only if the person made it community wiki, and attributed the original answers

I truly don't understand why it should be acceptable to have someone roll up all the good points from other answers and use it create a great answer, if they're doing it to bolster their reputation? To someone who comes along later, it'll appear that the person who created the rolled-up answer really knew their stuff. But they didn't, the community did. The reputation assigned should reflect that.

The people who posted the individual points contributed more than the person who just rolled them up together, and the reputation should reflect that too.

I don't think anyone wants to see people who only create rolled-up answers and gain reputation as a result.

Answer 7

Legal boundaries:
None. Since posts are covered by CC licence, you are free to use content from other posts in yours.

Moral boundaries:
Phew, that's the difficult part. There are various statements, in the FAQ and on podcasts and blog entries, that explicitly say that this site is collaboratively edited. From that point of view, the behaviour you desribe is desired. However, in practice I see a much stronger sense of personal 'post ownership', both from the posters and others who refrain from copying parts of other answers. The appropriate way that is generally accepted by the community is to attribute the copied part to it's original poster, in form of a link to his answer or a comment to your answer.

Answer 8

I have seen that happening some times indeed, and it looks a bit again like "whoring" for reputation.

I mean, I understand the concern of giving the most complete answer. But the point of such sites is to provide a "collaborative answer", through the voting system. I mean that logically, the accepted answer actually solves the problem, but the most voted answers following are adding interesting details.

The system already works like this, so I don't see why one would want to aggregate the good answers from others, besides for taking all the credit ("My answer is the most complete, watch !").