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I came across this question today -- it's a duplicate and already has an answer. But because new users rarely view duplicate questions to find the solution to their problem, the answerer copied one of his previous answers and posted it as Community Wiki. I assume he was trying to help the OP by posting the answer.

Quoting his comment:

Because the question-askers rarely, if ever, bother to view the duplicate questions to find their solution. So I post it here for their reference. I make it CW because I don't deserve any rep for it. Not that it matters since these questions are eventually deleted (as they should be)

After reading the Dr. StrangeDupe blog post, I'm a little bit confused. The answerer was not repwhoring (hence made it CW) and clearly had the intention of helping the user. This answer (if not deleted) might help new users who search for a slightly different search-term.

Should such answers be encouraged? What should be done in such cases (other than voting to close as duplicate)?

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  • 1
    I'm not likin' it. There's no sense to keep duplicate information floating around. I'd rather keep the more heavily upvoted answer than the new one. – Makoto Nov 13 '13 at 15:01
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    Regardless of the resolution - this is a good question. I've wondered about this several times before. IMO it should not be encouraged unless you're adding your own content to that solution. Moreover - if you do do that be sure to add full attribution to the original answer and a link. – Benjamin Gruenbaum Nov 13 '13 at 15:03
  • @BenjaminGruenbaum: Well, in this case, there's no need to provide attribution since it's your own answer. – Amal Murali Nov 13 '13 at 15:24
up vote 17 down vote accepted

No, they should not.

  1. Google highly frowns upon huge chunks of exactly duplicated content across pages.

  2. Having that answer there prevents the automatic redirection to the duplicate question (where there is more than just that one answer) for users not logged in.

  3. Ultimately, it's not our problem if the asker is too lazy to click on a link and find their answer. That's not a good reason to go all copy-pasty.

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