What is meta? ×  I have been following this question with
interest - History of public/private/protected - and noticed
that shortly after a new answer was posted by Neil Butterworth,
one of the original answers was updated to include this extra
information. I have seen minor clarifications based on other
posts before, but never such a wholesale import of another
answer.  Was this a reasonable thing to do here? Clearly, wanton
cannibalism of other answers isn't reasonable on a site where
multiple answers with distinct identities are supposed to
compete. But there is an argument to seek to improve one's
answer, particularly if a concept mentioned by another may be
better phrased or explained.  What are the boundaries that
define when its acceptable to incorporate information from other
answers into your own?  Edit: Marc Gravell points out that in
this case, the datestamps prove the edit came before Neil's
answer, so this is a terrible example. But the general question
stands.  share|improve this question Anothe