Question

Question #13b16

Answer 1

There actually are not two answers to these questions; there is only one. Instead of writing a new, separate answer, the second contributor has "updated" or "edited" the first answer.

Explanation:

The way to know whether a question has more than one answer is to check the count right below the question (highlighted in green below).

A question that has two separate answers looks like this:

In the case of the two questions above, you'll notice that beneath the question, it only says "1 Answer."

For the two example questions, both only have one answer, but that answer has multiple contributors. You can tell this by looking at the name(s) at the top of the answer. This first example shows that 2 people contributed to this answer, "Ken C. and 1 other":

Once you know that an answer has been edited, you can scroll down to the bottom of the answer and click the "updated" link next to the contributor's name:

You'll then be taken to the answer's edit history, where you can see a breakdown of which contributor which wrote what.

Here are the edit history pages for the two examples above:

• http://socratic.org/answers/198720/contributions/1
• http://socratic.org/answers/191195/contributions/1

Answer 2

Maybe I can help with this one...

Explanation:

The explanation Becca provided actually applies for both questions, not just for the first one.

I'll try to walk you through what happened to your answer starting from the moment the question was asked. I will go into detail about this, so if you're familiar with any of this stuff, you can skip to the part that are of interest. :)

So, if you visit the question

http://socratic.org/questions/what-is-the-historical-background-of-homer-s-iliad-who-are-the-major-characters-

and scroll down to the bottom, you'll see this

This is a sort of question history - it lists all the events that took place here, from who asked the question and who answered / edited it, to when that happened, to any comments posted or flags raised here.

So, if you click on Show more activity, you'll see this

So, here's what happened - from top to bottom

• Event no. 1 - about three weeks ago, a Mr. M asked this question.
• Event no. 2 - you answered the question. Mr. M acknowledged your answer - notice that the little heart under "Lucio Margherita wrote an answer" signals that "Mr. M liked this"
• Event no. 3 - for some reason, Mr. M then decided that your answer was too "complicated" and that it could be made "simpler", so he flagged it - notice that the event was marked as Mr. M suggested this answer could be...

At this point, the answer carried a "Make answer simpler" flag for about one week, until

• Event no. 4 and 5 - a new contributor Ayumi A. saw the flag and decided to edit the answer and, quote on quote, make it simpler. Her contribution is marked as Ayumi A. updated this answer.

Now, the link Becca provided takes you to the answer's Edit History

http://socratic.org/answers/191195/contributions/1

Here you can see who did what to the answer - what they removed, what they added, etc.

In this case, your answer is located at the bottom of the page, since it was the first answer / update recorded here.

When Ayumi A. updated the answer, she practically removed your text and added her own version.

What you see here in `color(red)("red")` was removed and what you see in `color(green)("green")` was added.

She practically rewrote the answer completely.

You are still listed as a contributor to the answer, though

So, to sum this up, your answer was updated, and the content of your answer was deleted by the contributor who updated it.

This is why I said Becca's explanation applies here as well - the original answer was updated by a second contributor. The question is still listed as having one answer

As a side note, I must apologize for this situation - I usually don't let new contributors delete answers completely when editing, but I must have missed this one. My bad! :)

With this being said, we can go about fixing this in one of two ways

• you can either repost your original answer separately by taking the text from Edit History and adding it as a new answer
• we can restore your original answer by "reverting" her update. This will essentially erase her update and restore the answer to the way you wrote it

What would you like us to do? :)