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While working on a code snipped for a recent question, I found that due to the self-referential nature of the answer, it would have been helpful to have a sandbox or test area for answers that aren't quite ready to be published. (The gist of the code golf question was to create an answer that returned some basic SE statistics about itself.)

Previewing before posting had limitations since there was not an answer ID to test against. To avoid confusion, I wouldn't want to post an answer-in-progress on the original question, but the question sandbox didn't seem like the appropriate place either.

Is there a temporary work area or thread that I'm missing, or should one be started? I realize that most questions would not benefit much from this, and I'm having trouble thinking up with other situations where this feature would be needed. As an alternative, if there is a way to flag an answer as incubating or unpublished, that would be preferable.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ There shouldn't be a need for that, just state in your answer that it's currently a placeholder \$\endgroup\$
    – ASCII-only
    Aug 18, 2016 at 4:44
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    \$\begingroup\$ 1. Why didn't you test it on a different answers ID? 2. You could have posted an answer and the immediately self-deleted, so that you could see the ID and then undelete later, which IIRC most of the answers did do. \$\endgroup\$
    – DJMcMayhem
    Aug 18, 2016 at 5:54
  • \$\begingroup\$ @DJMcMayhem: 1. I did at one point. The way I did was less than ideal and the answer had some quality issues, and the answer was soon down voted and deleted for me, leading to state 2. In retrospect, self deleting would have been preferable, but it did not occur to me. This pretty much accomplishes the same as unpublish, but it seems counterintuitive. If that's something I can undo on my own, then I would accept that as an answer. \$\endgroup\$
    – GuitarPicker
    Aug 18, 2016 at 6:13
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Mego, that other question is related, but seems to have an almost opposote intent behind it. They wanted to give early access to an incomplete answer to spark community development, whereas my intent is to hide or protect my answer until it is ready for release. \$\endgroup\$
    – GuitarPicker
    Aug 18, 2016 at 6:20
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    \$\begingroup\$ Yes, you can undelete an answer of yours, provided that you have deleted it yourself. \$\endgroup\$
    – Dennis
    Aug 21, 2016 at 23:14
  • \$\begingroup\$ There we go. Someone found a closer duplicate answer. Thanks for the assistance on this. \$\endgroup\$
    – GuitarPicker
    Aug 22, 2016 at 0:56

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