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On Workplace more than any other Stack Exchange site, I see Me Too answers duplicating most or all of the content of earlier, better/more elaborate answers. We've got some question quality problems IMO as well, however I'm not sure improving question quality can solve this problem.

I'm not sure if it's because "everyone's an expert" or what, but the duplicate answers are essentially noise, and for the most part they get upvotes. This problem can be seen in a huge way on Is it acceptable to use pirated software on the job? and to a lesser extent on How can I reduce the size of a long resume without hiding all my skills and experience?

How can we discourage these duplicate answers that don't add useful information?

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I asked for taser-over-IP functionality, but everyone said I was being an extremist. – voretaq7 Apr 25 '12 at 4:23

1 Answer

up vote 9 down vote

Downvote!!

And (very important) tell the user that you're downvoting because their answer already exists in another answer. I view downvoting without comment to be more destructive than constructive (unless it's a truly terrible question/answer), so be sure you comment on why you're downvoting

This comment is actually more important then the downvote itself, because it will not only tell the user why they got downvoted so they can change the way they answer in the future, but it also tells other users who view the answer why it was downvoted and to not use similar behavior as well

If you get moderator assistance and approval, you could also flag bad/duplicate answers for deletion or to move them to comments if they simply clarify something an existing good answer says

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Just a note: A comment is nice when there's none, but if there is already a comment saying pretty much the same you'd say, just up vote it, adding a "me too" comment kinda defeats the purpose of cleaning the site from "me too" answers. – Yannis Apr 20 '12 at 20:38
@YannisRizos Well yes, definitly just upvote existing comments that say the same thing instead of posting a new one if one's already there :) – Rachel Apr 20 '12 at 22:40
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Hm? Did you just post a comment that agrees with an earlier comment? Why not just upvote the earlier comment insted? ;P – Yannis Apr 20 '12 at 22:57
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@YannisRizos I did :) – Rachel Apr 21 '12 at 0:44

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