The Loop

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5:01 AM

Is it kosher to model a question after the intent of an older, messier question, answer the new question, and close the original as a duplicate? I've found two questions which I would like to address, but I'm afraid I can't edit them to distill them down to a clear and succinct point without completely replacing them, possibly making the Q&A less useful to the original authors to make it more broadly applicable to the community.

The first question: wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/381363/…

I feel the question posed in the title is decent, but the question body is meandering, implies a lot of bad practices that I'd feel compelled to address in the answer, contains multiple questions, and has so much missing information that I feel I'd need to address the range of possibilities. The author has been active, but has not shown an interest in providing more information in the last 6 months.

bosco

5:17 AM

The other is https://wordpress.stackexchange.com/questions/259181/receive-a-custom-parameter-with-rest-api
I think the question "How do I add a custom parameter to core REST routes/controllers" is solid - and that it's at the heart of what they're asking. But the author's been inactive for a few years, and I feel like I'd need to replace just about everything they have written in order to improve it's quality and create congruity with the answer I have in mind...

2 hours later…

kero

7:31 AM

@bosco I think your question is better fit for meta than chat. Personally I'd try to stick to the original questions as much as possible. The REST question already has 2k views - and I mean you too found them. So editing and/or answering them might benefit more people, than asking and answering a new question, which first has to get some track to be found

bosco

7:51 AM

Totally right on fit for meta - I intended it to be a short question but it got away from me. I appreciate the input :)

bosco

8:07 AM

My concern with editing was the scope of the edits I think would be required to genericize the questions - I guess I'm worried about steamrolling the author's voice or intention. That is probably less of an issue with the REST question. I will take the other to meta

2 hours later…

Feeds

10:21 AM

Q: Community Ads for 2021

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4 hours later…

Howdy_McGee

2:32 PM

I agree with your concerns about steamrolling a question with edits. Editing the title to be more specific or easier to understand their intent at a glance is fine, then adding an answer with clarifications, examples, etc. might be the way to go. Otherwise, if you can pose a similar question that's different enough and want to answer it, feel free to do so. Both questions could stand on their own.

1 hour later…

bosco

3:58 PM

@Howdy_McGee Thanks for the input!

3 hours later…

Feeds

6:42 PM

Q: Tag Gutenberg Questions with Popular Package Names?

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