Should I answer a question I know to be a duplicate?

Question

Re the question: Book of short stories

It's a duplicate of several other questions:

• Trying to find the name of a sci fi anthology book, or just the titles of one or more stories

• Short story about mutant children who all have names starting with "Em"?

• Looking for late 70s short story anthology, we'd call it YA now. May have included Leiber's "A Pail of Air"

What is the official policy regarding such questions. Answering it seems a bit of a rep grab, but on the other hand not answering it leaves it dangling unanswered. I guess the best option would be for the OP to agree it's a duplicate so we can close it, but so far they show no signs of doing so.

Answer 1

We already have an agreed policy on closing duplicate story-id questions, that we only close them as duplicates where there's agreement from both parties that their questions are asking about the same property. It doesn't matter how "obvious" you think they are, if they aren't accepted, we don't dupe them off.

Closing Story-Ident questions as duplicates (where there's no acceptance)

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As far as new questions are concerned, you have two choices;

• You can post a comment to the OP that you think their question is a dupe, preferably with a link to the suspected duplicate

"I think this is x, as detailed in the question here".

If the OP agrees, you can then mark it as a duplicate. This is the preferred option if the new question doesn't really add any extra details to the already answered question, or is a dupe of a dupe of a dupe.

• If you feel the need, you can post a new answer.

This is the preferable option where the other question doesn't already have an accepted answer or where the question adds significant detail (such as asking about a single story in an anthology).

Answer 2

I always feel like it's worth posting an answer both because there's a chance that it's not actually a duplicate, and also because it gives you a chance to provide an even better answer with more details.