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It is so hard to come up with remotely serious question titles when you have to talk about zombies, of all things...

The recent question zombie spawning asks about how zombies are spawned in Die2Nite... or however the capitalization goes.

An existing question from a month ago, Does killing zombies reduce their numbers on subsequent days, asks about a specific component of the spawning algorithm. Consequently, it got an answer with the full spawning algorithm.

The newer question is not really a duplicate of the older one, as it is more of the superset. They don't attract the same answers, it's more that someone exceeded the needs of the older question by providing the necessary answer that would satisfy the newer question. So as a result, it feels like it would be backwards to close the newer one as a duplicate of the older one.

In the other direction, it makes some sense. Compared to the existing direction, it's more agreeable that you'd be directed to the full algorithm answer if you ask about a specific portion of it.

Both seem valuable as questions. Thus, I'm thinking a merge seems appropriate here (after some minor title revisions). However, this is in the backwards direction and merges are a lot nastier to revert than if we simply closed it, what do people think about this? ♪

I'm also using this to launchpad , which people should use if they find a particularly enticing candidate for question merging that they think should be brought up for discussion.

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    You know what might be a great feature? Forking questions. It would allow us to un-merge and also solve the problem of people including too many sub questions
    – tzenes
    Commented Jan 4, 2011 at 23:01
  • @tzenes There's been requests for individual answer migrations for some time now. It would indeed be nice.
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Commented Jan 4, 2011 at 23:04
  • So, any decision on what is going to happen with this?
    – bwarner
    Commented Jan 10, 2011 at 17:40
  • This post blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/01/… seems relevant. It seems to suggest that we should edit my question to be more generic, and then close FOak's question as a duplicate.
    – bwarner
    Commented Jan 10, 2011 at 18:02
  • @bwarner As far as I'm concerned, it works in either direction. Merging your question into F Oak's general question is functionally the same as revising yours to be general and closing F Oak's as a duplicate - we're still ending up with one general question that another is merged into. If you'd like to edit your question to be the generic one, we can simply proceed in that direction.
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Commented Jan 10, 2011 at 18:06
  • OK, I tried to edit my question to be more generic, without leaving out the part of the question which Fabian answered.
    – bwarner
    Commented Jan 10, 2011 at 18:23
  • @bwarner Toss that into your answer here, vote to close the dupe, and we can call this accepted. ♪
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Commented Jan 10, 2011 at 19:03

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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I'm fine with merging my question into his. I don't know that I'm really aware of how this will look, but it seems reasonable.

I've edited my question now so that it is more general and covers the question that FOak was asking.

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    Example: Merge from this question into this question. Comments and answers on the merge-from are moved onto the merge-to, retaining all votes and such. Acceptance on the merge-from would be removed, if existing, and then the merge-from becomes locked. Merge is also shown in revision history.
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Commented Jan 4, 2011 at 18:31
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It wouldn't be completely right to merge.

While my answer happens to answer FOak's question, Fabian's would seem completely off-topic there as he answers about the only bit of information FOak didn't ask (connection between zombies on map and zombies on attack).

In this case, I voted to close as duplicate, as I don't really see the difference between the questions.

If you don't like that, I'd then use the CC-Wiki license, copy paste my answer and link back to the original (and my profile page)...

gets a stern look from ArdaXi

...as community wiki, or allow somebody else to do so.

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  • Jeez, Arda, is reps all you can think of?! :P
    – badp
    Commented Jan 5, 2011 at 19:11
  • You've confused your mass murderers, as that's Fabian's answer, not Mana's.
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Commented Jan 5, 2011 at 19:12
  • @Grace I'm only a person asking about the possibility of virtual mass murder, there is no proof that I actually performed any.
    – Mad Scientist
    Commented Jan 5, 2011 at 22:02
  • @Fabian That doesn't make my sleep any easier.
    – badp
    Commented Jan 5, 2011 at 22:09
  • Now, to actually address the scenario... why not just edit in a sentence of bwarmer's question into F Oak's question? "Does killing zombies during the day affect zombie rate?" is a component of asking how zombies are spawned, and it can be added without changing the meaning of F Oak's question. Furthermore, the explicit statement makes Fabian's answer no longer appear to be off-topic.
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Commented Jan 6, 2011 at 13:21
  • @GraceNote That works both ways, however, especially given that FOak's question is (mostly?) answered already.
    – badp
    Commented Jan 6, 2011 at 13:37
  • F Oak's question is not answered, though, because the answer is on a different question. That said, it is indeed possible to instead edit bwarmer's question to the more general sense, though this is a much larger edit than the reverse. Doing so, though, would let us instead close and/or merge in the newer -> older direction.
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Commented Jan 6, 2011 at 13:42

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