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I've recently custom flagged this answer:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/52297393/1426539

copied answer

Which is a complete copy of another answer (which funnily enough already consists entirely of a quote and its attribution):

original answer

The complete text of my flag was:

Just a repost of a different answer. Directly linked in the post as well... (stackoverflow.com/questions/1164899/ie7-popup-hide-the-url-‌​bar)

The response was:

declined - it's attributed and allowed

I do not understand the decline reason.

Shouldn't answers that copy another answer entirely although using proper attribution be flagged for moderator attention? (Feel free to close as a dupe to that one, although I'd like to know if that stance has changed since that answer was posted, in light of this flag's results).

Maybe my description wasn't complete enough, and I apologize for that, but the decline reason makes me think the mod did read both answers and made their own judgement, so a more accurate flag description wouldn't have made a difference.

Even if I didn't flag for plagiarism, I would argue that the attribution is kinda weak here: The link doesn't point to the answer but to the question, and the attribution should probably go the the primary source, not to the already quoting answer...

Nevertheless, not arguing a plagiarism flag, but would like to know in if either I erred and misinterpreted the guidance in this case or if we should avoid flagging cases like these in the future.

Apparently the question was deleted (likely due the additional meta-scrutiny this question brought), but my point is less about "lets delete this answer" and more about the flag handling and how should we flag these cases.

Even if this was "handled" by the community, a meta post was required, and the community deletion will possibly have to be reviewed by a mod anyway.

  • 9
    Don't forget to vote to close the question as a duplicate if you haven't done that, yet. – Tom Feb 22 '19 at 9:29
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    Regarding your question: as far as I know it isn't forbidden to use the answer of another question to answer "this" question, just highly discouraged, because the answerer should have voted/flagged to close the question instead. That is why the answer is downvote-worthy (if you want), but not flaggable, since it provides attribution. – Tom Feb 22 '19 at 9:31
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    @Tom Please read Bolt's answer in the question I linked. I flagged because of answers like that encourage users to flag useless posts like these. – yivi Feb 22 '19 at 9:33
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    Copying complete answers instead of dupe-closing could is not acceptable by a user with 5k+ reputation. They should now already how to close vote. – BDL Feb 22 '19 at 10:13
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    Does anyone see a problem if I copy BoltClocks answer (with proper attribution) to this question here? – BDL Feb 22 '19 at 10:15
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    I flagged a lot of answers like that before and flag was accepted and answer deleted – Temani Afif Feb 22 '19 at 10:28
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    Before saying it's a duplicate, look at the question not at the answers! What if the user is wrong and that answer doesn't answer the question? – Braiam Feb 22 '19 at 11:51
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    @Braiam then that user still should have VTCed instead of posting an answer. – TheWanderer Feb 22 '19 at 12:28
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    @Braiam they think it answers the question, otherwise they wouldn't have posted it as an answer. If you think an already-existing answer works, then you should VTC, not repost the answer. If it isn't actually a duplicate... well that's why we need 5 votes, a gold badge, or a mod. – TheWanderer Feb 22 '19 at 13:08
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    @TheWanderer I think you are misunderstanding my comment. I'm telling other voters to not simply follow this user judgement, but to form one themselves. I don't care what the user should do, I care whenever others follow the same potentially misguided path. – Braiam Feb 22 '19 at 13:14
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    This is an unambiguous case of plagiarism by the site's own plagiarism rules. There is no justification for declining a flag like this. Sadly this doesn't seem like an isolated incident, I've noticed numerous cases recently of mods refusing to act on cases of plagiarism. – Servy Feb 22 '19 at 14:16
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    @Servy It isn't plagiarism. Plagiarism is representing work done by someone else as your own. Just providing a link to the page containing the source and saying it's from that page makes it not plagiarism. However, just a link to the question page on which the answer exists isn't sufficient attribution under CC BY-SA 3.0, or the SE TOS. In addition, there's the already mentioned issue of should answers that are just attributed copies of another answer be something we find acceptable. However, those are different issues than plagiarism. – Makyen Feb 22 '19 at 18:25
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    Attribution is required; that includes naming the person who wrote the answer. Your flag was wrongly declined. Period. The guidance has not changed. – Cody Gray Feb 22 '19 at 18:42
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    @Servy Actually, it is a copyright violation, because they don't comply with the attribution requirements in the license. Such licenses grant the right to copy under certain specified conditions, not just whenever you feel like it, without regard to the conditions specified in the license. As to your arguments about SE's definition of plagiarism, I'm using "Plagiarism - posting the work of others with no indication that it is not your own", found here. – Makyen Feb 22 '19 at 18:48
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    @Servy, I suggest that when you are reading, you pay more attention to, and read a bit more accurately, the details in what is written, how it's organized, how it's referenced and sourced, etc. You appear to be continuing this discussion, just to have an argument. You've chosen not to just accept that we disagree. I, frankly, don't really care all that much what definition you personally use for the word "plagiarism", so have no real need to convince you. Because you appear to be continuing this conversation just to be argumentative, I'm just going to disengage. – Makyen Feb 22 '19 at 19:38
24

Sorry, It was me! It's ok to link to other answers on SO. Yes, we need to give attribution, so a link to the author's profile is optimal. But, the answers were completely the same, and really don't offer value. So I should have deleted it.

To be completely honest, I'm not even sure what I was thinking.

enter image description here
^^ seriously, this is me sometimes.

  • 3
    No harm done. Just wanted to know if I was in the wrong, or of there was some mod-disagreement in regards on how to deal with this. Thanks for your answer. – yivi Feb 23 '19 at 10:11
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    BTW "LOL" is Estonian for dunce -- I learned this in chat playing chess online with someone from Estonia – Dexygen Feb 23 '19 at 12:44
2

I'm actually inclined to defend Yvette's decision to decline this flag, even if she herself now thinks it was the wrong call.

If a short quote from a source is sufficient to answer a question - whether that source is external or is another Stack Overflow post - then so be it. That's not, in itself, a problem with an answer. It is a clue (not a guarantee, but a clue) that the question being answered is bad or is a duplicate, but not grounds for bringing down the mods on the answer, in my view.

In this case, there are some reasons to be annoyed at the answer you flagged:

  • It's not really an answer to the question. It's answering a question that isn't specific to Internet Explorer with information that is specific to Internet Explorer; that's unhelpful.
  • It's crediting the other Stack Overflow post as the source of the quote, but really that other Stack Overflow post is itself quoting from the MSDN docs. It would've been more useful to the reader to quote the original source.

But these aren't points requiring moderator intervention. The first is a reason to downvote, and the second can be solved with an edit (or just a grumpy comment, if you think that the answer is unsalvageably bad for the first reason and don't want to contribute any work that'll help preserve it). But neither issue makes the answer a rules violation or an exceptional case requiring mod action. It's just another crap answer on a site with millions of them.

For those reasons, I'd've downvoted, commented, and moved on.

In any case, even if you do think that the issues above justify moderator action, you didn't highlight them in your flag comment. Instead, you just complained that the answer was nothing but a quote (with attribution), which in my view isn't even a problem in the first place. If it were, then the original answer by Quentin would be equally deserving of moderator action; why didn't you also flag that one?

  • 1
    Maybe my flag explanation wasn't clear enough, I agree with you there. But seemed quite obvious what was the problem, and the decline reason made me think the mod had understood the flag. The problem is that this is a 100% copy from another existing answer. There are multiple mod answers lying around that say that these are good candidates for deletion and that mod flags can be raised for those. See the answer by Boltclock I linked in my question, and the answer by Cody Grant he linked in a comment. I happen to agree with those answers. – yivi Feb 23 '19 at 14:24
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    There is nothing flaggable about Quentin's answer. It's a quote properly attributed, it's not a copy of an existing answer. The comparison is moot, IMO. – yivi Feb 23 '19 at 14:25
  • My flag did say "it's a repost of a different answer", with a link to the original. Although the link was pointing to the question, not the answer. My bad there as well. – yivi Feb 23 '19 at 14:28
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    I support this line of reasoning. I still need to provide people with constant expectations when flagging. Though this was an edge case. Not plagiarism but just duplicating content. Tbh if attribution is there but not done 100% correctly, I'd prefer people edit than flag. But for duplicate content mod help is often needed. – Yvette Colomb Feb 23 '19 at 14:28
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    @yivi Hmm. Interesting. On balance, BoltClock's answer persuades me. I suppose a total copy-and-paste of an answer will almost always indicate either a dupe question or (as in this case) an incomplete or irrelevant answer. Eh. I'll leave this answer up for people to contemplate and/or downvote, but I do now think it's misguided. – Mark Amery Feb 23 '19 at 14:38
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    @yivi your flag was fine. I vagued out when handling it ECNUD – Yvette Colomb Feb 23 '19 at 16:34

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