New Posting Notices for Closed Questions

Question

As you may have seen in the sidebar, Stack Exchange is apparently overhauling what's posted when questions are closed. I'm not certain how any of this will impact us, but this answer does point out that one of the changes is that gold-badge dupe-closing will automatically result in a comment asking the querent if we were right.

Apparently, once I, as a gold badge holder, close a question as a duplicate of another one, an automatic comment is left on my behalf below the question, reading

Does this answer your question? Link to duplicate

I agree with their reasoning that this might be a bad idea.

Answer 1

This was a bug and has apparently since been fixed so we should never see it when the changes come to SFF. See the comments by Yaakov on this main meta answer:

Duplicate of meta.stackexchange.com/a/337031/51. We changed the auto-comment language, but bug in the auto-delete when closed – Yaakov Ellis♦

Update: the auto-delete logic is fixed for this, so the comment will be deleted when the post is closed. I am not marking this fixed yet, as I need to go back and clean up the comments that should have been deleted but were not while this bug was live over a few days. – Yaakov Ellis♦

The linked main meta post and its comments give some good reasons for not wanting to keep the comment around and I agree with them.

Answer 2

Voting to close something as a duplicate already does leave an automatic comment, attributed to you, saying:

Possible duplicate of [link to dupe target].

The only difference is that, under the current system, such comments are auto-deleted when the question is actually closed. If you're a gold tag badge holder, that means right away. For example:

If this information about the new system is correct, then the change will be essentially that the "possible duplicate" comment stays even after the question is closed. (OK, the automatic text is different, but you can still edit your own comment within the usual 5-minute window.)

To me, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. It makes sense to inform askers that their question may have been asked previously - both before and after their question is actually closed! In fact, if anything the comment is going to be more useful after the question is closed. Before closure, the question may not actually be a duplicate, and it's still able to attract answers. After closure, no more answers can come in, and it's really helpful to give the OP a notification so that they can either (a) see their answer on the dupe target or (b) clarify that their question isn't a dupe.

The only thing I'd really want to change is the wording. "Does this answer your question?" sounds a bit too ... uncertain, especially for someone who's wielding a hammer to close the question unilaterally. Maybe "This question has already been asked at ..."