So there's an old question about The Walking Dead. At the time of asking, I answered it.
A few months ago, new information was found - a game (unreleased at the time of asking) featured the painting of those words as one of the 'tie-ins' to the show/comics.
Someone else noticed, and posted an answer. The answer, in my opinion, was good but not great. Rather than hijack it and add the explanations/discussion that I edited into my answer (which would have made the answer substantially mine) I copied the single fact of the answer into my answer, and added the explanation there.
I am, however, uncertain that this was the right thing to do. I did it for several reasons:
- The answer, despite being several months old, had only 2 upvotes (it wasn't being seen)
- There were important points that I felt needed to be made regarding the games being canon
- My answer, despite being less right, was the one being seen. The edit substantially improved my answer, making the default first answer more accurate for people who find it later.
- I will now share in the reputation gained from this information.
To my view, had I only done it for the first three reasons, it would be fine. But I know myself: I also wanted the reputation gains. In my own view, this makes it ethically questionable, despite the fact that I clearly cite my source, link it, and encourage upvotes for the other answer as well.
This is a situation that may arise again, so I wanted the community's take - is this the right way to handle the situation where a lower-voted (and arguably, less well discussed) answer provides information that a higher-voted answer doesn't?