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<p>I have a question about my Cross Validated post: <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/261519/the-formula-of-a-coefficient-from-a-regression-with-3-independent-variables-not">The formula of a coefficient from a regression with 3 independent variables (not in matrix form)</a></p>



<p>I posted the original question today and immediatelly it got marked as duplicate. The warning about it being a duplicate states: "This question was marked <strong>as an exact duplicate of an existing question</strong>. If this question is different, please edit it to explain how it is different".</p>

<p>As anyone can clearly see, the question is <strong>not</strong> a duplicate. To the point that the moderator who marked it as duplicate, justified in the comments why he did so despite of the fact that he/she <strong>knows</strong> it is not an exact duplicate - on the contrary to what the warning of "marked as duplicate" says.</p>

<p>I would go even as far as saying that the question is not only not a duplicate, but it is exactly <strong>building on</strong> the one that it was accused as being a duplicate from. The whole point in my question was exactly to understand how to generalize the problem to more than 2 variables because I got confused with the generalization.</p>

<p>If needed, I could easily ask the question in terms of "how to generalize it to the case of <code>n</code> variables". So, my first question here in the meta:</p>

<p>1) would that make it an acceptable question if re-ask it terms of generalizing to <code>X_n</code>?</p>

<p>2) or, what if I re-ask and show what I got for the 3-variable case and ask what is wrong?</p>

<p>Note that I am interested in the generalization case up to $X_n$ and only asked a question about 3 variables to simplify. Also note that I am specifically interested in not using the matrix form, for learning purposes.</p>

<p>Finally, because I think that in this case the moderator abused the meaning of "duplicate" just to block a question he/she thought didn't need an answer, the last bit to ask here is:</p>

<p>3) aren't there any limits for the extent to which the rules can be strecthed? If one finds answering a question to be non-sensical, that's fine. Don't answer. But this alone does not qualify a question as duplicate according to the very rules of this site.</p>
