How to best re-work answer?

Question

I answered How do I run a maze scenario without using a map? a while back; while I think my recommendation's a great one, I stipulate that the presentation's very hard to follow. (That is, I don't have any problem with the down-votes.)

Now I've run one in-chat, rather than in-person, and I have some idea of how to re-present the idea in a much more concise form. I see three alternatives before me:

• massively edit the current answer;
• delete the current answer and re-post from scratch;
• post anew, leaving the old answer.

My instinct is to post anew, so that readers could see both presentations and judge accordingly. But I'm not sure that's the best approach. Recommendations?

Thanks.

Answer 1

If you're presenting about the same thing, but in a heavily revised more useful way, I suggest you just do a huge edit. Having two answers which try to say about the same stuff is going to be confusing, so #3's right out. Whoever cares about comparing and contrasting will use the edit history.

If you feel it's wholly different such that the -2 score shouldn't reflect on your new version, you can delete and post a new answer. We can't really judge whether that's appropriate for you without seeing the new version. I suspect people won't object strongly or raise much of a fuss; this happens on rare occasions and isn't really a big deal.

It is a big deal if you've just deleted then reposted more or less exactly the same thing — people have done that in the past to blatantly evade downvotes, and it doesn't get received well. I don't think we have to worry about this in your case. :)

If you're presenting an entirely different position, you should read Do I edit or create a new answer when my view on my current answer changes significantly?.