5

Let’s say a user has put a fair bit of research into a question.

If there are many examples of text or sheet music—say, the user is interested in several measures of some piece of sheet music and has found three or four varying copies—should the user feel free to post them all as-is, or should they be behind links (e.g., “Here are the images: 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and here is this author’s two-paragraph interpretation, and here is this editor’s three-paragraph rebuttal”)?

Is this a matter of preference, a rule, reasonable judgment (e.g., two images are no problem, four starts to become too many, six is clearly out of line), or something else?

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  • I just found point number 5 here, and it seems relevant: “…including previous research can be detrimental, can over-complicate an otherwise simple and/or elegant question.”
    – Neal
    Commented May 8, 2018 at 16:07

1 Answer 1

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4

If something is central to the question, I think the preference would be to add it inline if possible, rather than in links - links can break, and having to go to another site to understand the question isn't ideal.

Links might be appropriate for more peripheral information, or cases where it's not possible to extract something in a format that the site allows to be placed inline. Another reason to use links might be if you have reason to believe that putting content inline might result in copyright issues.

Of course it's good if questions are succinct, and this holds true for examples too - just because you know of 10 examples of something doesn't mean you need to include (or even mention) them all when asking - just include the ones that you feel are the best illustrations of what you're talking about.

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    Okay, thanks. It gets frustrating trying to toe the line here. I never know whether to expect, “-1 do your homework, what research have you done?” and “-1 this is way too detailed, keep it shorter” :-|
    – Neal
    Commented May 10, 2018 at 15:45
  • 1
    @Neal I think there should be more research in that comment, and also that it should be shorter ;}
    – Нет войне
    Commented May 10, 2018 at 15:50

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