10
votes
Accepted
Undercutting the old duplicity
The weakness of the answers to the old "Origin of the word 'bootleg'" question is not reasonably attributable to the question asker's failure to show any research in the posted question. Rather it ...
- 156k
10
votes
How does one deal with the problem of the phantom upvoter?
In addition to what Mari-Lou said about punitive downvotes for dupicate questions, there is some added irony in this case:
1) The "offending" O.P. actually linked to the duplicate question which ...
- 58.4k
9
votes
Should the question about "I am [who/whom] G-d made me" be reopened?
The question "I am [who/whom] G-d made me" should be reopened.
It's about "prescriptive" grammar, so the answer is not intuitively obvious. The example sentence combines two environments that are ...
- 76.7k
9
votes
Accepted
How does the Community user close a question as duplicate?
This is all explained on Meta.SE: New UI encourages askers to confirm or dispute duplicate votes. Here's a summary:
When there is at least one duplicate close vote on their question, the author sees ...
LaurelMod
- 62.4k
8
votes
Accepted
Should "Why can we use inadequate but not 'inspecific'?" be reopened?
You make a specific and adequate claim that the post is not a duplicate. I agree with your thought to edit the question. I would suggest that you refer to the alleged duplicate and the rule of thumb ...
Kit Z. FoxMod
- 27.6k
7
votes
Is it a bad thing to have your question marked as a duplicate?
Answering your questions in no particular order...
In general, duplicate questions are not desirable because you end up with answers to the same actual question spread out across multiple question ...
- 17.7k
7
votes
Should "What's the difference between tense A and tense B?" questions be marked as a duplicate of something generic?
The repeated questions add no value, and generally it appears that they can be marked as duplicates of How do the tenses and aspects in English correspond temporally to one another?
So that's what I ...
Andrew LeachMod
- 97.7k
6
votes
Accepted
Duplicate Question -- Already Been Answered
Users with at least 3000 rep can vote to close questions. One of the options to do so is
This question has been asked before and already has an answer.
However, a duplicate is not necessarily an ...
Andrew LeachMod
- 97.7k
6
votes
When a question is later marked as a duplicate, should you delete your answer?
My short answers would be maybe and no.
The no is easy: you wrote your answer and have no obligation to delete it.
The maybe... Some questions are obvious candidates for a duplicate in which case ...
- 15k
6
votes
Flagging a Question as a Duplicate of an ELL Question
Disclaimer - I'm answering this from the ELL perspective, so this answer says nothing about how the ELU community would like to handle these sorts of situations.
If you're aware that there is a ...
- 1,342
6
votes
Accepted
How to Mark a Question as a Duplicate of Multiple Questions
Users with gold tag badge having the privileges to single-handedly close as duplicates, and naturally, all moderators, can edit the listed duplicates once it's closed. It's a new feature actually. See ...
NVZMod
- 22.5k
5
votes
Accepted
Difference between Flags "A Duplicate" and "Should be Closed... Duplicate of"
They're essentially the same. Regardless of which one you choose, the next window title is:
Flagging > Closing > Duplicate
Users who do not have the "close vote" privileges can still click on "flag" ...
NVZMod
- 22.5k
5
votes
Why must we assume that earlier answers are better, especially when they are not even related?
I haven't looked into the two questions very much yet, so I can't say if they are truly duplicates. However, I can say that the practice of marking questions as duplicates isn't due to some assumption ...
- 76.7k
5
votes
How does one deal with the problem of the phantom upvoter?
I don't understand why a user has to penalise an OP for posting a duplicate question. Very often newcomers are unaware or unable to search a related question. Which doesn't appear to be the case here.
...
- 87.9k
5
votes
Seriously though, how is this a duplicate?
The two questions deal with how to pluralize macaroni. Both questions are badly worded but I disagree that one question is just "do we use an s or not". Either way, the proper answer to both questions ...
- 26.4k
5
votes
Why do we allow a question to be marked duplicate when the "duplicate question" is much wider in scope than the original?
Generally Speaking
While it is possible that this specific case is an exception to the rule, it probably is not unless we are given specific reason to believe it is exceptional.
There are a few ...
- 4,501
4
votes
When a question is later marked as a duplicate, should you delete your answer?
In my opinion, even as I'm one who has answered a known duplicate question, I won't delete my answer if it's significantly different from the answers given on the duplicate question. Some duplicate ...
- 4,100
4
votes
Undercutting the old duplicity
As an option and feature request, it might help if we could actually tag a comment as "related", and have those pinned to the top of the comment section. Having a weaker option as part of the system ...
- 14.8k
4
votes
Accepted
Is this actually a duplicate?
I think it is a duplicate. The answers to the other question do mention ships. I think the question "Why are ships always female" should be edited by the original poster to clarify what information is ...
- 76.7k
4
votes
Is the question asking about the "AmEng meaning" of two phrasal verbs a duplicate?
"They seem the same to me. If there were any situations where you’d prefer one to the other, the answers to the famous question would attest to that. Which is the test for duplicates: would the ...
4
votes
Can moderators change a close reason from 'Please show your research...' to 'Duplicate of...'?
Moderators can change the close reason of a question only by reopening and re-closing it. A moderator confirmed this in chat.
Voting to reopen (by 5 users) merely for the sake of closing it with ...
NVZMod
- 22.5k
4
votes
Can we get this unlinked?
What has happened is that the 1st question was closed as a duplicate of the 2nd. The system of closing is what made the link (by the choice of the user who closed it, who, by the design of the system, ...
- 70k
4
votes
Can we get this unlinked?
Why would we want to split answers between the same question asked slightly different ways? If someone is looking for a “word for someone who holds a position but they have no real power” they should ...
- 1,342
3
votes
Can moderators redirect links from badly chosen duplicates to actual duplicates?
Moderators have the ability to edit the list of original questions that the duplicate question links to. They can delete links and also add new ones.
I see two ways someone could proceed. They could:
...
- 28.1k
3
votes
Project Reduplication of Deduplication - English
My immediate thoughts:
The very first pair I got were two very clearly unrelated questions that had nothing whatsoever to do with each other—same as what several others have noted.
I suspect they ...
- 31.8k
3
votes
Accepted
Linked question is absent in "This question already has answers here" banner
This happens for all old duplicate closures, look e.g. here for more examples.
Back then, the duplicate banner was edited into the post itself:
You can start to edit the post to see the 'source code' ...
- 14.4k
3
votes
"Why don't we close these duplicates?" vs "Why do we not close these duplicates?" vs "Why do not we close these questions as duplicates?"
As far as I can see, the question has to do with fairly simple facts and rules. But these deal with several different things, and the various statements in the questions, and answers, are ...
- 104k
2
votes
Are all questions about the reason a word is spelled/pronounced the way it is duplicates of one another?
I agree that there are different purposes for these spelling vs pronunciation questions, and that there is so little out there for people to get real answers other than asking native users who like ...
- 278
2
votes
What if the dupe is on another site?
Since the question is answered on another site, I shall take the advice in that answer and its comments.
TL;DR: Take the relevant parts of the answer from the other site and summarise/quote in an ...
Andrew LeachMod
- 97.7k
2
votes
Project Reduplication of Deduplication - English
Thanks for your work on this project!
Thoughts so far (I think I've done around 30 of these):
What is the intended use of "Related, not duplicates"?
I mentioned this in a comment, but I don'...
- 76.7k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible