<p>I recently came across <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/21807/evaluation-measure-of-clustering-without-having-truth-labels/79080#79080">an answer</a> that was copied &amp; pasted <em>in toto</em> from <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/76093/how-to-determine-which-method-is-the-most-reasonable-clustering-results/76095#76095">another thread</a>.  I think the answer is high-quality--I had upvoted the previous iteration--but I am uncomfortable with this; I suspect this behavior (unabated) will clutter up the site.  I am also in a quandary about whether to upvote an answer twice or leave a worthy answer un-upvoted, which may imply to future readers that the community didn't think much of it.  </p>

<p>Certainly there are any number of questions that are fundamentally similar that arise regularly.  This issue has been discussed before (<a href="https://stats.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1122/how-to-stem-the-tide-of-duplicate-qs">How to stem the tide of duplicate Qs</a>) and I continue to hold the <a href="https://stats.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/1122/how-to-stem-the-tide-of-duplicate-qs/1137#1137">opinions</a> I stated in the previous discussion (<strong>tl;dr</strong>: this is inevitable, &amp; harnessed properly can lead to positive knock-on effects).  I don't think the best solution is to simply close and/or delete any question where the same answer could be given.  </p>

<p>I left a <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/21807/evaluation-measure-of-clustering-without-having-truth-labels/79080?noredirect=1#comment155111_79080">comment</a> to the answer at issue to the effect that it would be better to leave a comment to the question with a link to the previous answer or a brief answer with such a link.  The OP <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/21807/evaluation-measure-of-clustering-without-having-truth-labels/79080?noredirect=1#comment155114_79080">disagreed</a> on the basis that <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/19756/how-do-comments-work">comments</a> and original <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/209694/when-a-user-has-one-of-his-question-or-answer-deleted-why-dont-you-notify-him">answers</a> elsewhere could be deleted without notice.  </p>

<p>I don't want to debate this with a single individual in the comments to an answer.  I think it should be discussed here on meta.  <strong>What policy should we adopt relative to this type of situation?</strong>  </p>

<p>Note: I found <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/85470/reposting-an-identical-answer-on-a-different-question">this meta.SO thread</a>, but did not find it to be very helpful.  <a href="https://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/106660/ive-copied-one-of-my-old-answers-into-a-more-appropriate-question-should-i-del">Here</a> is another related meta.SO thread.  </p>
