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https://hardwarerecs.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/1946 . It was rejected with "This edit should be its own question.". Just curious if this was just a reflexive reject because it may have looked like a separate question after 2 seconds of review, or how this should be best handled?

I specifically began the edit with "Supplemental details, not looking to hijack the original question, and as to not create a duplicate question."

If I were to post this as a new question (Edit: posted, based on answers/comments), will it not just be closed as a duplicate? (If I were reviewing the new question, I would probably have marked it as such.) Or post the new question, preferably as Community Wiki, and mark the old question as a duplicate of the new one?

This topic appears to be particularly problematic / misunderstood, as the same question was previously closed and deleted at https://superuser.com/questions/291414/usb-ethernet-adapter-with-vlan-support-available .

I am hoping the user community would have a centralized location to be able to monitor progress towards any potential solutions here. This isn't a debate as to "which of the available hardware solutions is the best", but "someone please post an answer when the first solution comes to market that solves this".

I would like to see this effort hosted on Stack Exchange - especially as this isn't an individual concern of mine, but one shared by the community (as was reflected in my suggested edit). I can instead post the challenge to my personal blog - but would rather see it here, if the community is in agreement?

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  • I will add a comment or an answer to this when I have more time to explain why I rejected it, but this might be sometime tomorrow. The message I left should have been more helpful.
    – Cfinley
    Mar 30, 2016 at 21:05
  • @Cfinley - thank you, and no concerns. I was just looking to see if the rejection was with the understanding of the specific topic and context being discussed, or if it was based only on the nature and appearance of the edit. Per the others' recommendations below, I'll start as a new question for now. My only hope would be that if one is closed as a duplicate of the other, we'd keep the one with the additional specifics, research, and history.
    – ziesemer
    Mar 30, 2016 at 21:12

2 Answers 2

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This is a tricky situation for several reasons.

  1. As the author of a question, you want the question to be your own. This means that if someone makes a significant edit that changes everything about it, it should be guaranteed to be rejected because it deviates from your original intent.
  2. Adding that much information to someone's question is immediately a flag that you should instead be providing it as a comment, an answer, or even as a completely new question. However, all three of these alternatives seem to be sub-par in this situation.
  3. Since the question was first asked on another site and deleted, we have no way of confirming the information in the suggested edit unless the author personally provides it.

Taking all this into consideration, I have also rejected the edit — mostly for the third reason. Such a significant edit should only be coming from the author in my opinion. An exception to this is if the author has provided info in the comments and someone is simply copy/pasting it into the question for clarity.

If the author wishes to clarify the question, they can absolutely do so, but we can't allow massive edits like this one or else the system will be fundamentally broken. The best course of action here is to discuss the edit with the author in chat and let them know of your idea.

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  • Adam - "Even edits that must make drastic changes should strive to preserve the goals of the post's owner.". This was exactly the intent. As someone possibly not familiar with the issue first-hand, I agree, it is confusing. Without the additional context, I would expect that the first answers to be posted will be non-relevant - as can be seen with what happened at web.archive.org/web/20150910002122/http://superuser.com/… ...
    – ziesemer
    Mar 30, 2016 at 20:19
  • Also (sorry, length limitation) - regarding #3, the "on another site and deleted" portion there is visible for the purpose of this review at web.archive.org/web/20150910002122/http://superuser.com/… . I can / will discuss with the author in chat, but the owner of the question is unregistered, this question was their only activity, and hasn't been seen since posting 3 months ago.
    – ziesemer
    Mar 30, 2016 at 20:23
  • With all of this taken into account, what is the best course of action here - not just for any individual question, but for the topic to be posted and able to be discussed by the community, preferably on the SE network?
    – ziesemer
    Mar 30, 2016 at 20:23
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    Looking at that web archive link, I don't see your edit info coming from the author in any way. Perhaps another thing to note here is that your edit is very self-commentated. You mention yourself quite a few times and talk about things relating to you and not the author. This is also something that will have your edit rejected immediately.
    – Adam
    Mar 30, 2016 at 20:29
  • Thanks for the comments - mostly agreed. As I re-wrote it as an edit, I did change all the references I could to be collective - other than the 2 specific examples, which I still feel would be needed for clarification.
    – ziesemer
    Mar 30, 2016 at 20:43
  • I'm still at a loss as where to put these details next. I respect the focus on the current author / owner of the question. I suppose we can wait a few days, but it would appear that it is an orphaned question. If still nothing, what then? Try a varied edit? Consider turning into a Community Wiki question (as a mod)? Post as a new question? Or doesn't belong on SE at all?
    – ziesemer
    Mar 30, 2016 at 20:47
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    @ziesemer - A new question is the way to go, see my answer below. If your requirements are different from those of the question, then you have cause to post a new question and it wouldn't be a duplicate. I haven't reviewed the edit in detail, so I can't say whether it's a dupe or not, but in general different requirements are different questions.
    – ArtOfCode
    Mar 30, 2016 at 20:59
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To throw another opinion in - I would have rejected this too.

Your proposed edit was drastic. It was broadly asking the same question, but it did change a few things about the existing post. In general, you should be editing to correct an existing post, rather than to change it (unless you have permission from the OP).

If you have new requirements for a piece of hardware of your own, then you should be posting another question. If the requirements are different, then it's not a duplicate (with the exception of cases where all but one of the requirements are the same, or for very similar questions).

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  • Thanks for the input. No disagreement in the rejection, and thank you for the discussion (and above comment). Following your advice, I'll start it as a new question for now. My concern remains, however, that it is the same requirements - just clarified, and with some example use cases provided. Without this context, every other forum that has attempted to get an answer on this (including on Microsoft forums, Reddit, and elsewhere) gets sidetracked with answers that don't actually meet the requirement, due to confusion of being able to support a single tagged VLAN vs. multiple VLANs.
    – ziesemer
    Mar 30, 2016 at 21:02
  • @ziesemer I can't guarantee that it's not a duplicate, but it can certainly have a chance. We'll see what everyone thinks :)
    – ArtOfCode
    Mar 30, 2016 at 21:06
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    Closures could go the other way too. You could close the old question as a dupe of a newer, better one. Some comment abuse explaining the intent of the new question may help there.
    – Journeyman Geek
    Mar 31, 2016 at 5:15

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