Is it proper (and userful for our users) to have deleted for plagiarism answer like this?

Question

Limit and advisability to delete an answer

I recently incur in this question ("Can EXE always be replaced with COM?") and in the deleted answer that I report below for the users that have no access to the deleted questions.

It is an upvoted answer (~70), with many version (5) made by the author, with more than 15 comments. It must have been popular in the summer vacation period :-).

I have no problem to recognise some inspiration as proposed by other users, but I can see even some work in cutting the not essential parts (in relation to the question), a general paraphrase of the other page, some personal additions (in Z-80 / 8088 code).

We usually deprecate to post one-link answer asking to report the main points: here it missed the link (now there is one), but I cannot be sure that the author takes really that page as inspiration, or another page on internet (in principle even older) as starting point.

Nonetheless there is some personal work that differentiates the original blog page with the answer, and it is possible that someone finds it more clear and readable than the accepted one.

Note that the accepted answer was posted some hours after the deletion of this one, with the explicit link to the blog page, a similar paraphrase that simplify even more the concepts expressed and with the addition of a link to a stackoverflow similar question.

So I'm asking myself and to you all:

1. is it that enough to mark as plagiarised and delete this answer (and others like this) ?

2. is it not a damage for the normal user that the answer is deleted and not any more accessible (even more in consideration with the fact that it was really highly upvoted and so many people just thought it was useful)? In general the information inside the deleted answer should be get lost...

3. is it not the case to undelete it, maybe with a critical note that states the absence of the source link, and let the people read and decide?

Thanks for your time.

---

The deleted answer in its last form

[paraphrased from Raymond Chen, Microsoft - What’s the difference between the COM and EXE extensions?]

In the beginning of MS-DOS (and CP/M) the only programs that existed were COM files.

A COM file was just a memory image (in Z-80 / 8088 code). To load a COM file, the loader used to put the file into memory and started it at the first byte.

The COM file format had the problem that programs were limited to 64KB. To manage that limitation the EXE format was introduced. The EXE file has a header that begins with the letters "MZ" and includes information that the loader uses to load the program into memory. COM files were "raw memory images" and EXE files were more "structured".

Over time the original MS-DOS programs like FORMAT.COM, EDIT.COM and COMMAND.COM grew larger than 64KB and they had to be changed to EXE, but it meant a compatibility problem with a lot of software produced in the past. It was solved by giving the loader the flexibility to check if the file begins with "MZ", independently of the extension, so as to know if it is a "structured" or "raw" file.

So nowadays it doesn't matter what the extension is (COM or EXE) because the loader will recognize the header and will manage the file accordingly.

answered Aug 11 '16 at 13:26 jcbermu

Answer 1

I think that there's a real need to avoid plagiarism in answers, anywhere on SE. I also think that there is no need to reinvent the wheel. If the web has the answer, and there's little that can be added to that answer, then don't try. Providing the source of the information, preferably with a link, cancels plagiarism. Even the Help Center recognizes that answers will need external material. It does say to only use what's needed and to use your own words.

OTOH, the guidelines for good answers tells us not to provide links without context. The link could become unavailable, or even be deleted. So we need to include the relevant info from that source in the answer, so that the answer here can stand on it's own, if need be.

The older a technology is, in this case decades, the more likely it is that what the web has will be as terse as possible already. That leaves very little room for people here to summarize that info. (How do you summarize the overview of a summary?) For the question at issue, the reply could have been "An EXE renamed to a COM will not run in anything earlier than MS-DOS 2.11." Ok, I may have the wrong version of DOS, maybe it's 3.21, I don't remember. Nevertheless, that literally answers the original question.

To provide more info, and make the answer worthwhile, the deleted answer here provided more background, gathered from the web, and reduced it reasonably. In the form presented here, the answer includes proper source citation. Comparing the answer here to the cited material I'd say a credible job of condensation was done. Maybe there could have been more background, maybe less was needed to answer the question. Some "wiggle room" needs to be there to avoid simple answers that "work" for the OP but do nothing to make SE better. I suppose the answer could have added other material, not found in the citation, such as the "magic letters MZ are for the creator of the concept, Mark Zbikowski," but that's probably too much trivia for the answer anyway. It was a good, non-plagiarized, answer, and would have gotten my up-vote.

My opinion, flag it and get it back. It's better than what's there now.