On/off-topicness of "conclusions" added to the original question

Question

I wonder what is your opinion about on/off-topicness of conclusions added to the original question like it has be done here at the bottom?

Should such edits be rejected and a self-answer posted instead?

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Personally, I find that this particular question should be rolled back. Especially that the conclusion virtually says I was wrong, you are right and basically rephrases the accepted answer. It's nothing more than a comment.

Generally, in future, a self-answer would be more appropriate if it should stay here longer. A question should remain a question and not be extended with comments based on answers.... which is how this usually works.

Answer 1

We have an existing FAQ that discourages adding updated code.

You also should not append your revised code to the question. Posting improved code is an answering activity, not a questioning activity. An example of such a problematic edit is Revision 2 of Optimize vector rotation. While the addendum to the question does not necessarily invalidate existing answers, it muddles the question. What are late-coming reviewers supposed to do? Reviewing the original code would be silly, but reviewing the revised code could lead to version skew among the answers.

Whilst the literal words say "code", I think the same sentiment can be used to questions being hijacked in other forms.

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For the specific question:

1. Posting a self answer would violate our answering guidelines as it doesn't critique the code in the question.
2. The edit reads as a comment, and should probably be located under the answer that it's addressing.

3. If the questions raised in the edit are anything more than rhetorical then it would make sense to post a new question to include the added nuance.

   • Hijacking a post makes it confusing what answer addresses what question in the question. And so would make more sense to ask those questions as stand alone posts, or as discussions on sites better equipped for discussion.

   • Edits like that are self-defeating, as the question has already been classed as answered by Stack Exchange mechanisms, as the site is designed for static questions - not questions that change on a poster's whims.

     And so the new questions are easily overlooked by the site and by its users. (Do we really need a 5th answer?)

Answer 2

I think that Matt said it best here when he said "readers seeing your post for the first time, don't need to see which part was in the original post, and which parts were added." Granted he was talking about edits to the question that were done for other reasons, But the point is made clear that Stack Exchange sites are not forums and I would take it a step further and say that you shouldn't respond to answers by editing your question, we have comments for a reason.

If you have other, on-topic, questions that you would like answered additionally, create a new post with updated code so that they can be singled out and reviewed appropriately.

But that isn't the point of this conclusion statement, it appears after reading it several times that it is an attempt at steering future reviewers away from reviewing these specific aspects of the code which will only hinder the reviews that the OP will receive.

Again, don't respond to answers by editing your question, that isn't how the site is supposed to work

Finally, does it take the question to the limit of making it off-topic, not really. I would just call it bad practice.

In Conclusion: After Finally reading the Bold print of the entire post, I realize that this may be the way that the poster asks for a review of certain aspects of their code, the tone or style of their writing. The finality of the conclusion now feels like an accolade to the answer poster while also trying to engage them in further discussion about the specific aspects that have been called into question, which should be taken to Chat