Is it good practice to add a better answer to a story-identification question that already has a correct (although brief/lacking) answer

Question

I saw this new question which happens to be about a book from my favourite author. I immediately recognised it and knew exactly what OP's remembered details referred to within the context of the book.

However, OP managed to find the book on their own and posted a two line answer - simply the title of the book (Pandora's star) and a link to it on goodreads.

Given that I have the knowledge to write an improved answer (by relating the details OP remembered to the events/details of the book), is it good practice to add a better and more detailed answer - when the existing answer is brief but entirely correct?

I'd like to clarify that the question has since been closed as a duplicate, but this should have no standing on what the general best practice is.

Answer 1

In this instance there doesn't seem to be a need to post a competing answer. The question has been answered by OP and is definitely a dupe. Best thing to do would be to flag it as a duplicate and move on.

If you still feel the overwhelming desire to contribute, you might consider editing a short quote into the stub answer with a brief explanation (in a comment) like;

"I've taken the liberty of adding in a quote. Hope that's ok".

I've never seen anyone raise an objection to that as long you don't obliterate their answer with a huge wall of text and commentary.

Answer 2

My general policy is that if all I'm doing is searching for the title and posting in a link and summary from Goodreads or Wikipedia, I just edit the original post. If I'm sourcing quotes, tying together multiple entries/reviews, or it otherwise gets more involved than me just copying and pasting someone else's words, I make my own answer.

Duplicates... it varies. If I can edit the additional details into the "sun source" of the duplicate chain, I will. If not (the details are particular to that duplicate question, and adding those to the base question will change it too much), then I will write my own answer so that that additional information is available.

Answer 3

In my opinion, if the question is a duplicate, and if the original question has an adequate answer, no action is needed. After all, the new question could have been closed as a duplicate without posting any answer.

On the other hand, if the question is not a duplicate, or if it's a duplicate but the answer to the old question is of low quality, or if a new answer is needed because the old question & answer address completely different aspects of the story from the new one, then I think it's best to post a good answer rather than rewrite the asker's terse answer. The OP in such cases is likely a new users, and new users may not understand and may take offense at our custom of improving other people's posts. I remember a user a few years ago who angrily unaccepted an answer because someone edited his question.

Answer 4

Normal etiquette on this site is that the first person to provide a correct answer to the question should have their answer accepted—but, of course, that is just custom, not binding on the person who asked the question. Even a very terse initial correct answer (especially from a relatively new user) usually gets an upvote from me. However, if someone else can provide a more detailed answer, pointing out how it matches the details given in the question, that can also be quite valuable (sometimes even worthy of a bounty).

The answer may become a little trickier with a duplicate, for a couple of different reasons. With a duplicate, there are two possible places where one could post a more detailed answer (the new question and the dupe target; I really like FuzzyBoots' calling it "the 'sun source' of the duplicate chain," in spite of the mixed metaphor). There is a further complication for gold-badge users (and everyone who has answered this meta question so far has a gold badge in the [story-identification] tag). I am adding my thoughts on this, since a closely related issue has recently been discussed on scifi.meta. If I know or locate the answer to a question, and a short answer or comment is posted and identified as correct by the OP before I have posted my own answer, I will sometimes go ahead and post my answer if it is completely or mostly finished; then I close the question as a dupe. My thinking is that I prepared an informative answer in good faithe, before I knew the question was definitely a duplicate, and if my detailed answer is more useful, then it is probably good to have. On the other hand, even if the first correct answer is terse, if someone else posts a detailed answer before I do or if the answers to the dupe target cover all the relevant ground, I will just delete my incipient answer and move on, since posting the answer would not really contribute anything of value.