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As agreed by the community, editing a question to include changes suggested in answers is a bad edit, and these edits are regularly rolled back, for a good reason: we want the answers to refer to the code in the question, as the OP's code was when it was reviewed. There's no questioning that.

But that's generally true for iterative reviews.

The first answer posted on this question made a number of assumptions about OP's code, which caused the following comment (emphasis mine):

Mat. My dude. I really wish you would have just dropped a comment real quick to clarify instead of making so many (incorrect) assumptions. As a result, all but the last few paragraphs are irrelevant to me. The answer has some nice factoids that might be useful to some readers but now if I edit my post, I will invalidate your answer. I am partially to blame for using var so sorry. In all actuality the Paginate extension returns a PagedList! You can figure it out from there. The last few paragraphs are helpful to me though so thanks. I will have a think about which approach to take. – Caster Troy 1 hour ago

Indeed, I should have commented and asked for clarifications instead of making [wrong] assumptions.

We've agreed to edit our respective posts; both the question and my answer were properly edited.

Is there anything wrong with this kind of approach towards edits if it's initiated by the answerer?

Oh.. how about I scratch the first two strikes off that answer then? – Mat's Mug 48 mins ago

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Code must not be edited after an answer has been posted

Code must not be edited after an answer has been posted even if the answer is still valid after edit.

Help Center states

However, any aspect of the code posted is fair game for feedback and criticism.

And answerer can edit his/her answer to include anything, anytime. And if the code has been changed answerer cannot add what he/she had thought to be included in the future.

For description

If any part of updated description invalidates an answer, but if more answers are expected, It should be updated with information but yet avoid making answers invalid. Sample And OP can use comments or question body to make sure that doesn't happen

Don't rush to answer

Most new users might still be in the process of updating the question when fast answers are posted. Answerer should try to communicate using a comment or chat with the OP to confirm that question has been finalized. However this might not be feasible due to the competitive nature of Stack Exchange websites. (Everyone loves internet points)

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  • \$\begingroup\$ "Code must not be edited after an answer has been posted" is an exaggeration. Edits that do not invalidate existing answers are fine, especially if the question has been closed and the edit will make the question re-opened again. \$\endgroup\$ Dec 27, 2017 at 16:32

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