Is posting multiple answers encouraged, and under what circumstances?
Users are able to post multiple answers to a question. But is this encouraged, or discouraged? Does the answer change depending on the circumstances?
For the sake of a concrete example: Say there’s a geometry question that could be approached in different ways: with synthetic geometry, with trigonometric formulas, with vectors…. And say that I wanted to answer the question using each of these approaches.
Should these be posted as separate answers, or combined into one?
For comparison, that other Q&A site explicitly invites multiple answers, by replacing the “Your Answer” form with a button that says “Add Another Answer”. It tempers that with a message when you click said button:
Are you sure you want to add another answer?
You could use the edit link to refine and improve your existing answer, instead.
(And then there’s meta discussion that establishes what appears to be a consensus.)
I don’t want to make experimental posts, so I haven’t actually tried adding a second answer here (that is, I wrote one but never hit “Save”). But I don’t think there’s any similar guidance available.
1 answer
I'm not aware of any specific guidance, so for now it probably comes down to "Use your common sense". Certainly if the answers are long and independent then it makes sense to post them separately; if they're all one-liners then it probably makes more sense to post them in one answer.
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