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A few months ago, I asked this question, which has gotten no response whatsoever. It asks to prove a statement, or to provide a counterexample.

Today, I found a counterexample, but it is in a very specific situation that I probably want to exclude from my research. Hence, I am still interested in the question, leaving out that specific situation. I am now in doubt as to what my best course of action is:

  • Answer my own question with the counterexample, and create a new question (which will be almost the same, with some extra restrictions).
  • Answer my own question with the counterexample, and add restrictions the question to avoid this counterexample (as a clear edit).
  • Simply edit the question (mentioning the counterexample as a reason for the extra restrictions).
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Both the first and the last option seem fine to me (I would not go for the second one as this could be confusing and partially answered question are not optimal and thus should better be avoided if possible).

If the new question would be only a minor variation I would edit.

If the counterexample is quite interesting and it leads to a more significant change of the question I would go for self-answer and new question.

Finally, when in doubt, and if feasible, I would go for edit.

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