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When should one add another answer instead of editing one's already posted?

I have been member of SO for 4 months. I have a question regarding some functionality. Whenever I give an answer to a question, there is functionality given Add Another Answer.
I can comment on my answer at any time and also able to edit answer. Then

  • Why this functionality given on SO to add another answer?
  • When should I add another answer?
  • Why there is requirement of multiple answers?
  • What is limit of adding answers to single question?

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marked as duplicate by Gilles, jonsca, Toon Krijthe, ChrisF, jadarnel27 Aug 1 '12 at 13:23

This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.

2 Answers 2

up vote 17 down vote accepted

You should rarely add another answer if you already have one answer to that question.

To emphasise that it should be exceptional, when you click the link to add another answer, you get a friendly confirmation dialog:

Are you sure you want to add another answer?

But sometimes there are good reasons to post more than one answer to a question, therefore the functionality exists.

You should not split one answer into multiple posts, even if it is a long answer consisting of several parts. If the parts together make up the answer, it should be one post. (But, if you write the awesomest answer ever and hit the post-length limit, go ahead and break the rule.)

If you can offer substantially different answers to the problem, that can be a case where multiple separate answers are appropriate, but each should be able to stand by its own merits, of course. Variations of the same theme belong in the same post, making more than one answer of them just adds noise.

Even if you suggest two unrelated ways to solve a problem, if they are short enough, they should usually be (separate) parts of one post, since more posts clutter the page. Unless they don't fit together. For example if one of them uses very controversial techniques, having them in the same post would make voting difficult. It would force people to a) upvote content they disapprove of, b) not upvote content they strongly approve of, c) downvote content they approve of, d) not downvote content they strongly disapprove of. Seems undesirable.

If putting both ways into the same answer would create an unreasonably long post, and the two ways aren't related, you should post them as separate answers. Two normal-sized posts are easier to digest than one humongous.

You should post multiple answers if they are unrelated and

  • they are too long to be in the same post or
  • they are superficially similar, so having them in the same answer could be confusing or
  • they are so dissimilar that having them in the same answer would be incongruent or
  • one of them is likely to meet objection and the other approval or
  • you really think it would be better to have them in different posts.
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Is it mean if I am having parts of answers(long answer) then only I should add another answer. –  Somnath Muluk Mar 15 '12 at 12:40
    
Is it feasible to add 2 different ways/ answers in different answers!(From your last update- One can upvoted and one downvoted.) I doubt users will be downvoting both answers for having two different views. –  Somnath Muluk Mar 15 '12 at 13:08
    
fribbling the wibble has been deprecated... other than that - great answer =) –  Lix Mar 15 '12 at 13:09
    
@Lix Oh, missed that, thanks for the heads-up. What's the best practice now? –  Daniel Fischer Mar 15 '12 at 13:22
    
youll need to "fish the dan[iel]" and perform a remote "Skeet bomb".... –  Lix Mar 15 '12 at 13:29
    
@Lix: I am not getting anything what are commenting. Can you please more elaborate? –  Somnath Muluk Mar 15 '12 at 13:42
    
@Daniel Fischer: Can you please rewrite answer and well formated points when should I write another answer and when should not ? –  Somnath Muluk Mar 15 '12 at 13:58
    
@SomnathMuluk I'll try. But it'll take some time, since I'm busy and not a great wordsmith. –  Daniel Fischer Mar 15 '12 at 14:01
    
@Daniel Fischer:You have done it nicely. –  Somnath Muluk Mar 17 '12 at 4:19
    
Having two unrelated (but short enough) answers in the same post, as suggested in para 6, makes meaningful voting impossible. –  Jonathan Hartley Dec 3 '12 at 10:51

There are other cases where they are asking for something that have countless of multiple answers.

It would be a problem if they put more than one answer per post because it will be hard to properly vote the answer when you disagree with one of the points (even if you agree with the other 90% of them)

So to avoid this, the OP will usually say to not put multiple answer on a single post.

These cases are certainly rare and usually don't happen anymore

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If OP is itself asking for separate answers, then we should give separate answers. This could be one case. –  Somnath Muluk Mar 15 '12 at 16:24

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