Sometimes that's just as bad. Often the questions I see that are closed as "duplicates" are not actually duplicates, just closely related. The answer to one is

Sometimes that's just as bad. Often the questions I see that are closed as "duplicates" are not actually duplicates, just closely related. The answer to one is not always the answer to another. I don't have an SO example on hand, but consider this Sci-Fi StackExchange question: http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/79363/why-was-the-ring-necessary-for-sauron-to-control-middle-earth/ http://scifi.stackexchange.com/questions/79363/why-was-the-r... The question is "Why does Sauron need the Ring to control Middle-Earth?" The correct answer is that he doesn't; he can control Middle-Earth without it, his victory is inevitable, but needs it to remove the only possible method his enemies have of overcoming him. After being correctly answered, the question was flagged as a duplicate of "What was the point of Sauron making the One Ring?" which is a very different question and comes with different answers. This is, in my experience, extremely common across the StackExchange network. In that example, the "duplicate" question was answered before being closed, but that's not always the case.