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Unlike other (Q&A) sites in the Stack Exchange network, CGCC has a consensus that duplicate answers are acceptable. For some code golf challenges there is one obvious shortest solution in a particular language, so it's unsurprising that different users might independently arrive at the same answer. By default we assume that everyone acts in good faith.

The action prompts in the Late Answers queue contradict this consensus:

  • An answer Looks OK if it 'is unique'.
  • A reason to Recommend deletion is that an answer 'is a duplicate'.

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In practice, reviewers familiar with our stance towards duplicate answers disregard the prompts. Others may well be led astray. I don't know whether acceptable answers are often actually deleted as a result, but I do know from comments on duplicate answers that awareness of our policy isn't universal, even among experienced users. (Some time ago I was myself directed to the linked post after leaving such a comment.)

Do we have control over the late answer prompts on CGCC or are they set network wide? If we can change them, shouldn't we remove the references to unique/duplicate answers?

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This is currently uncustomizable and according to the CMs, it is not something they are planning to customize.

In nearly all circumstances, duplicate answers aren't OK; CGCC is exceptionally unique in this regard, so we will have to live with this unfortunately.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Duplicate answers really aren't OK on Code Golf, either. I can't post the exact same answer as someone else and get away with it. (If nothing else, that would be plagiarism.) What you actually mean is that answers that overlap and/or provide the same solutions is OK, but that's not the same thing as "duplicate". Thus, I don't think the review text is even wrong or misleading. \$\endgroup\$
    – Cody Gray - on strike
    Nov 10, 2021 at 4:22
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    \$\begingroup\$ @CodyGray It's a fine line. There do exist answers that have identical code (not that I can find any examples) but if you mean just like literally the same thing copy-pasted from another answer and it's obvious plagiarism then yes, you're right. I do think "duplicate answer" in the scope of CGCC could be misleading though as sometimes people come to the same idea independently, and with golfing languages, there is often only one way to implement an idea. \$\endgroup\$
    – hyper-neutrino Mod
    Nov 10, 2021 at 5:00

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