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Recently, I misinterpreted a question and provided an incorrect solution to a problem.

Can, I mark it in any way just like we have "duplicate" questions?

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  • $\begingroup$ I would love to contribute to the community. But, I don't want to contribute poorly. I've misinterpreted a user's question. And, by now he must be irritated of the constant pinging by my edits. $\endgroup$
    – The T
    Commented Dec 1, 2019 at 1:56

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I can suggest two ways to handle the case where you misinterpreted the question:

  1. Delete your answer. Enough said, no further action needed.

  2. Delete your answer. Post a new question, that asks the question you thought you were answering, and post your answer there.

How to choose between those two? It might depend, for instance, on whether you expect the alternate question to be useful to others in the future.

You might also consider whether it makes sense to edit the question to make it clearer, to help other readers avoid misinterpreting it in the same way you did. You might not be the only one to come away with the wrong impression of what is being asked.

So, I don't think we need a way to mark answers as "I misinterpreted the question", and I don't think it would be beneficial.

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  • $\begingroup$ Sometimes, there's a learning opportunity if the same misinterpretation is likely to happen to other readers, and the answer works toward clearing it up in an interesting way. But yes, deleting is the besser way most of the time. $\endgroup$
    – Raphael Mod
    Commented Dec 1, 2019 at 19:38
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    $\begingroup$ @Raphael, I can understand that. Personally, my sense is that in most cases, that kind of information is better as a comment or an edit to the question to clarify what is being asked and innoculate other readers against that misunderstanding, but I can see how it might depend on the situation and how interesting the information is. $\endgroup$
    – D.W. Mod
    Commented Dec 1, 2019 at 19:40

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