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Okay, so I am very confused and possibly for a simply reason, but to me this makes no sense.

The Problem:

The question Muggle Borns and Social Workers tagged Feb 14 is marked as a Duplicate Nov 25 of What's the “official” explanation for Harry's (and everyone else's) absence from muggle school? which was asked Nov 24.

BUT

Since the question "Muggle Borns and Social Workers" comes first shouldn't that be the original and the second question be the duplicate?

I am very confused and don't know how to explain this could somebody please shed some light or is this a topic for Meta Stack Exchange?

My major Problem is:

  • How can the first question be a duplicate of the second? Especially when it came nearly 6 months before?

Did I miss some required reading from the Help Center about duplicates.

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2

As per Should we always close the newer question as the duplicate?, it's not necessarily the newer question that gets closed.

Usually it is, but there are a number of reasons why the newer question is preferred to the older. In this case, I flagged the newer as a duplicate, but before it got closed, it ended up on the Hot Network Questions list. That made it get a lot of attention and answers, so that made one of the mods decide to close the older.

Since I think the old question has some good quality answers as well, I'd like to suggest merging, but I don't know if it's possible.

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0

I closed them that way because looking at the two questions, the more recent one seemed higher-quality, and it got way more attention.

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  • I would say is that even fair, but IDK. Is this a common practice? I didn't read anything about this. – Pobrecita Nov 29 '14 at 5:02
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    @iliveunderawesomerock Yes, when one question is significantly better than the other, it is common and encouraged that that one is the dupe target regardless of the relative ages. – Kevin♦ Nov 29 '14 at 7:44
  • @Kevin But what about just merging content. Doesn't that make sense, this current practice just seems like rewarding duplicates. People might just write a duplicate, but add new info. Couldn't this be a problem? – Pobrecita Nov 29 '14 at 7:59
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    The reason #2 got more attention was because it was unfairly singled out for "Network Hot Questions". As usual, way-undeservedly inflating its stats completely out of proportion to the quality of its answers. – DVK-on-Ahch-To Nov 30 '14 at 0:34
  • @DVK Yes, yes, we get it, you hate the NHQ list. – user1027 Nov 30 '14 at 2:37

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