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If the question is "marked as duplicate" then there is always a link to the duplicate, where the question is hopefully answered. I think it is a good thing that
by olavk 9y ago
If the question is "marked as duplicate" then there is always a link to the duplicate, where the question is hopefully answered. I think it is a good thing that the same question has answers in a single place. But of course there is a grey zone when it is not exactly the same question.
As for off-topic questions, this is annoying, but I also think it is necessary for any useful site to maintain a focus. For example, StackOverflow does not allow requests for software recommendations even though this a frequent kind of question. But it is not a good fit for the format of the site since you often cannot say a recommendation is the "correct" one.
- oldcynic 9y agoIt often seems that the duplicate is different enough that they should remain separate. Or just as frustrating the duplicate relates to a previous release where the same question begs a different answer.
- olavk 8y agoCan you provide a few links? I can vote to re-open if appropriate.
- GCU-Empiricist 9y agoIn my own experience ~7/10 times the duplicate question is something entirely different and I have to spend longer searching because of someone's ignorant pedantry.
- olavk 9y agoCan you provide some examples of duplicates where the "duplicate" is actually something entirely different? Maybe I can help improve the situation.
- GCU-Empiricist 9y agoI don't have a personal list but I'd suggest scraping r/programminghumor for stack overflow links would generate a statistically significant test set.
- olavk 8y agoIf it happens 7/10 for you it should be easy to find and link to some blatant examples. Since I have the rep to vote for reopen, we might be able to improve the world together.
- reitanqild 8y agoFor years it happened to me that more often than not when I found something really useful on stack overflow it was closed for some dumb reason. IIRC this happened while other users seemed to be happily karma farming best-of questions. I haven't seen so many lately but I've decided to start making bookmarks on them and here is one I found a few days ago: https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13202705/what-are-the-uses-cases-for-git-orphaned-branches https://stackoverflow.com/questions/13202705/what-are-the-us... Myself I've witnessed first hand a question about networking being shot down on networking because it was between company networks instead of inside company networks.
- cpburns2009 9y agoI asked a specific question about text wrapping in Java SWT a couple months ago. It was quickly closed by a Java gold badge holder as a duplicate of a question asking what the best Java GUI framework is... which had nothing to do with my question. Thankfully, few hours later another Java gold badge holder reopened it, and answered it.
- psyc 9y agoIf the linked question does not answer the new question, then it isn't a grey area, and it isn't a duplicate. This seems to happen too often.