34
votes
Accepted
Does this Meta policy overrule our Meta?
I'd reckon the closest thing we have to an official, network-wide policy on duplicates is found in the 2010 blog post, "Dr. Strangedupe: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying And Love Duplication&...
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29
votes
Accepted
Is it encouraged to delete your own questions if they have possible duplicates?
No
DO NOT DO THIS
I'm sorry for shouting, but I've wanted to say this to a few people recently; I got a bit excited.
There are a couple of reasons you shouldn't do this:
Your question may not end ...
- 162k
26
votes
Accepted
Is a user allowed to ask the same question twice if they didn't get an answer the first time?
Thanks for raising this. As Kevin said, the usual policy on story-ID duplication (both must be answered and have confirmation that the answer is correct) doesn't apply for this type of scenario. I don'...
Rand al'ThorMod
- 134k
24
votes
Accepted
Closing Story-Ident questions as duplicates (where there's no acceptance)
story-identification questions should only be closed as duplicates where both answers are accepted, regardless of the similarity between them. (If the OP posts a "yes this is it" comment, that's as ...
- 667k
24
votes
Accepted
Handling questions that will be duplicates once answered
The fact that you have to go through such convoluted (il)logic in order to convince yourself that the questions are duplicates is actually a blazingly bright sign that
THE QUESTIONS ARE NOT ...
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21
votes
Accepted
Why are we still arguing over duplicates?
Why is this issue so contentious?
Apparently, people have strong feelings over duplication. Some people feel that duping practice on SFF is far too restrictive, that many questions are getting closed ...
Rand al'ThorMod
- 134k
18
votes
Closing Story-Ident questions as duplicates (where there's no acceptance)
If only one question has a known correct answer, then we should leave the other open.
My response to the suggestion that we close ‘obvious’ story ID dupes has always boiled down to “Okay, but why?”. ...
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17
votes
Accepted
Duplicate policy and intensive workload due to it
On our general policy
This site's current (most recent) policy on duplication, and specifically on whether or not answers can make questions duplicates, may be found here (emphasis mine):
To avoid ...
Rand al'ThorMod
- 134k
16
votes
Accepted
Should distracting answers to duplicate questions be deleted?
No. Moderators should absolutely not be arbitrarily deleting answers on questions that are marked as duplicates.
The answer might contain useful information that could be added as a future answer to ...
- 667k
16
votes
Accepted
What does closing a Question as a Duplicate actually do?
Duplication is a type of closure, but it's less punitive than other types.
We close questions as duplicates. The option to mark it as a duplicate is found under the list of vote-to-close options, for ...
Rand al'ThorMod
- 134k
16
votes
Accepted
Are "duplicate chains" to be avoided when possible?
Hub all the way
Basically all that Kevin said for the "dupe philosophy" part.
There's also a "technical" thing we have to consider here. We all have SFF accounts, meaning when we ...
- 55.5k
15
votes
Closing Story-Ident questions as duplicates (where there's no acceptance)
I'll post my answer in the form of a question: I have to question what makes a story ID question a duplicate? Is it the answer? I ask because the name of a book could be the answer to several ...
- 63.1k
14
votes
Just because a question has been asked and answered does it make it correct?
Science Fiction and Fantasy Stack Exchange has bad habit of marking a question as duplicate solely for the reason that it has been asked before.
THAT'S EXACTLY WHAT "DUPLICATE" MEANS!
A question is ...
Rand al'ThorMod
- 134k
14
votes
Is a user allowed to ask the same question twice if they didn't get an answer the first time?
For Stack Exchange in general: We didn't put "already has an answer" into the flag description. That's a network-wide requirement: Dupe targets must have an upvoted or accepted answer, "with the ...
- 9,413
13
votes
Accepted
How should I avoid overzealous editing of question in the future?
The only prevention advice I can give you is to read over your question before submitting, and make sure that both the title and body are:
Asking the question you intended to ask
Asking the same ...
- 162k
12
votes
Best handling for "dupe groups" within [story-identification] questions?
The duplication target should always be the better question1
First, it’s probably worth noting that selecting the better question as a duplication target is both SE consensus (as well as the consensus ...
- 114k
12
votes
Why are some of my questions marked as duplicate when they are not?
You've posted a total of six questions which have been closed as duplicate and later deleted. (Each of them was closed either by a moderator or the holder of a gold harry-potter tag badge. While not ...
Rand al'ThorMod
- 134k
11
votes
Accepted
Star Wars question is an exact duplicate of old question asked before Legends. Retag old question or add new answer to old and mark new as dupe?
Mark it as duplicate
It’s not worth it to have two different questions for two different canons. Would we want one question about the Doctor Who television series, another about the audio serials, ...
- 114k
11
votes
Accepted
How do we resolve this supposed dupe situation?
It's a different question, which has a different answer, and it should be reopened (again). The original question is basically saying "Coulson was resurrected in MCU TV, why isn't he in the other MCU ...
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11
votes
Can we dupe-close Story IDs when confirmation is given by what looks like the OP’s second account?
Since I closed this question: Sci-fi novel series with older people transferring their minds into younger bodies as a duplicate of this one: Book series my dad told me about. It involves space ...
- 94.8k
11
votes
About closing "first example" questions as duplicates
Of course, you're right. Requests for the first example of X can't be duplicates of each other when the two X are different, even if one of them is a particular type of the other. The only case when ...
Rand al'ThorMod
- 134k
10
votes
Can I ask a duplicate question based on requesting new information?
You have a few different options
Bounty
This is the preferred way: post a bounty on the older question. This automatically bumps the question to the top of the front page and puts it in the featured ...
- 162k
10
votes
Accepted
How to deal with a Post which has two questions in it and one of which may be a duplicate?
When I spot a multi-question question where one or more parts are already duplicates, I generally do three things;
1) Vote to close as "Too Broad". Note that this is the normal action when two or ...
- 667k
10
votes
Accepted
Is deduplication possible?
Yes.
In exactly the same way as for any other kind of closed question: click the reopen button. (Users with less than 250 reputation won't see this button at all; users like you with between 250 and ...
Rand al'ThorMod
- 134k
10
votes
Accepted
Why was my question about Hagrid's parents closed?
The top answer to the duplicate question specifically answers your question; Was Hagrid the product of a consensual pairing?
If you're worried about whether Hagrid's father did it voluntarily, be
...
- 667k
10
votes
Accepted
Should we prefer questions with accepted answers when closing identification requests as duplicate?
No
Comments are fine to be used for closing as a duplicate, all that matters is that we have confirmation. This is because not all users know that you can accept an answer, especially new users (and ...
- 142k
10
votes
Accepted
Why was this Infinity Stone question about Thanos closed as duplicate?
I've given this discussion some time, and examined everything objectively (i.e. without paying attention to who wrote what). There have been some spurious arguments put forward, and also some ...
Rand al'ThorMod
- 134k
10
votes
Accepted
Where's the duplicate?
It's a serious bug, but already reported on main meta and devs are looking at it:
Closed as a duplicate, but the duplicate list is empty?
Here's hoping it'll be fixed as soon as possible.
In the ...
Rand al'ThorMod
- 134k
9
votes
Accepted
Reopening Duplicated Question - Start creating Rules for tagging a question
Your specific question
I'd rather not comment on this, since I never got into the Star Wars franchise. My gut feeling is to agree with you that it's not a duplicate, and if I weren't a mod I would ...
Rand al'ThorMod
- 134k
9
votes
Just because a question has been asked and answered does it make it correct?
The quality of answers is taken into account
There is no requirement to close the newer question. Closing as duplicates should be based on question (and answer) quality.
According to a CM in this ...
- 114k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible