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I had a question that was placed on hold with a link to this: Can I put my code on a third party site and link to the site in my question?

The code I asked for review of was on Stack Overflow, and quite short. Does Stack Overflow also count as external?

I ask because when I look at the top answer on the Meta post about third party questions, I see the following points against:

  • To avoid dependency on third-party hosting services. These links tend to go away after a while.
  • To prevent review requests of huge projects.
  • To make it easier to see the code and so it can interest more reviewers and get more reviews.
  • To avoid confusion when the OP changes the code in the repository and suddenly the answers no longer apply to the code.

Do we believe these points apply to other sites in the stackexchange network?

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    \$\begingroup\$ If the code is already on another SE site, it is trivial to copy/paste it to your CR post. So what's the problem, just do that. Takes a few seconds. \$\endgroup\$
    – Lundin
    Dec 6, 2018 at 8:54
  • \$\begingroup\$ I believe the 3rd and 4th points would apply to Stack Overflow. \$\endgroup\$
    – Blackwood
    Dec 21, 2018 at 18:32

1 Answer 1

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I don't see any reason to treat other Stack Exchange sites in a special way regarding this issue: Reasons #3 and especially #4 are still very important.

  • Posts in the Stack Exchange network can always be edited and/or deleted, both of which could potentially invalidate any existing answers or remove the code to be reviewed before any answers were created.

  • It might not be obvious which part of the linked Stack Exchange site should be reviewed, especially if there are multiple answers or an answer exploring multiple options.

  • It might not stop with one redirect. Other Stack Exchange sites might not require the full code being embedded in the question, thus sending reviewers on a scavenger hunt through multiple links.

  • Also, it seems a bit disrespectful to your reviewers: They are creating reviews in their own free time; and a good review can take a lot of said time! At the very least try to honor the time and effort invested by (future) reviewers by making it easier for them to get to the actual code.

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    \$\begingroup\$ On top of that, there might be a small version difference. Or an invalidating edit on SO which isn't caught on CR (on CR, we try to catch & revert them all). I fully agree with this answer. \$\endgroup\$
    – Mast Mod
    Nov 27, 2018 at 22:24

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