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I just had a declined flag after mod-flagging this answer for being plagiarism of this one.

However, the mod declined the flag with the reason:

"It's not plagiarism, it's the same answer though (...)"

Is there any difference between plagiarism and "same answer" that I don't understand?

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    I can't see the answer (possibly it's been deleted anyway?), but plagiarism implies a direct (and intentional) copy, whereas the "same answer" could just be a random answer being the same as another one (be that by similar timing or people just not reading the existing answers). Depends on the specific wording which is more likely, though.
    – Major Tom
    Jul 4, 2019 at 11:40

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I rejected it because the answers were the same, but the content was not. They were clearly two different answers that came up with the same song.

Here is the one from the OP:

I found it ! I hope this the right one, [Story Of My Life][1], by the danish band Blast.

It is from 1986 and sang by the female singer Lise Dandanell. The lyrics you quoted start at 1:13.

[1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ2ZIBOVJFo

Here is the post that was questioned as plagiarized:

it's Blast, the song title is Story Of My Life from their album Blast 2 1983

It's the same answer, but the details are different. Let's put it another way, if asking a question you expect to get the same answer if there is one true correct answer, but how it's stated and explained can be quite different.

Now there was a helpful plagiarized flag raised on an additional answer with the exact same YouTube link. In this case, it was a lot clearer that it was directly lifted since the number of views is so low on the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZ2ZIBOVJFo

Blast - Story of My Life a Jazz Band from Danish

I just want to point out this again raises to the issue with these questions and how we need a content guide for them. Should we moderate answers on these kinds of posts and delete them when they are the same? Probably, but it's not stated anywhere that this is our policies nor on the meta and calling it plagiarize is just not right especially when someone just trying to answer the question without reading the answers could get accused for no reason.

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  • I've also just rejected two different flags for the same reason. Flagging these posts as already answered is fine, but the reason carries weight and if the reason isn't correct, flags will be rejected.
    – Dom Mod
    Jul 17, 2019 at 21:09
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It's splitting hairs, but technically Major Tom is correct. Plagiarism would indicate an identical answer (i.e. copy/pasting of an answer), which wasn't the case. If I'd have seen it I probably would have accepted the flag as is, especially because of your diligence to the site, but that's a matter of personal preference. The Mod's response to the flag wasn't wrong, but I'd have given you the leeway.

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