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As from question title, I am interested in knowing what is the current shared community view in regards to link only answers that are also self answers.

Normal link only answers should just be flagged/downvoted as low quality. But my question is - should self answers be treated differently?

My main concern is that a self link only answer, especially if posted together with the question seem to be just a way to publicize the posted link to increase traffic, which made me wonder if the mods have some tools they can use to confirm this theory and if it is even worth the time to do so.

As a disclaimer, the idea for this question came from this post. I am not accusing anyone here and have so far avoided taking any action on the aforementioned answer, but it certainly got me wondering on how to handle it.

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The general stance is link only answers should be down voted or flagged. If flagged, we would add a post notice and they would be subject to deletion. Link only answers serve no value as hyperlinks change easily. The essential parts of the link should be in block quotes with your context giving the complete answer.

In the said question, it looks like it was being scraped from somewhere else, perhaps MSDN forums? It is a really weird post.

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  • that's the main point. The post as is feel almost like the user is attempting a self answer on a topic he had to fight with -which is totally fine if the site gains some new good content - but at the same time trying to get people to visit that link. Wouldn't surprise me if the poster is also the owner of the linked blog... and this don't really feel that good.
    – SPArcheon - on strike
    Commented Mar 30, 2016 at 17:51

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