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Four hours ago, this post was closed: Get current URL with javascript?

And i dont understand why it makes sense to close down a post two years old stating that it is a duplicate of another post that is also two years old, when the post in question has 80 times the number of views, 30 times the number of upvotes, and is the top result when searching for this topic in google.

Is it a strict "we are redirecting this because the original one was posted before this one" or what?

share|improve this question
    
No redirection is happening. That is, a message is coming up, but a 301/302 is not what is occuring. –  Oded Jan 23 '12 at 22:41
3  
What do you suggest? Reverse the close as duplicate so that the older question points to the one you linked? –  Robert Harvey Jan 23 '12 at 22:42
1  
It doesn't matter which one has more votes. It matters which one was asked first. –  animuson Jan 23 '12 at 22:43
8  
@animuson I disagree. If the later one is 1.) worded better or 2.) has better answers, it deserves to be the original. Having been first shouldn't be the only factor when deciding how to dupe-close –  Pëkka Jan 23 '12 at 22:44
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@animuson: Well, it does matter some. The master question should be the one that is more canonical. –  Robert Harvey Jan 23 '12 at 22:44
1  
So merge the answers into the one that was asked first. –  animuson Jan 23 '12 at 22:45
    
@animuson I'd like that, too, but merging often doesn't work due to differences in the way the question was asked (despite it being the same question). –  Pëkka Jan 23 '12 at 22:58
    
I would also like to say that the top answer on the post that i linked is a much better, more precise answer. –  BananaNeil Jan 23 '12 at 23:06
    
@RobertHarvey can't those two be merged and everyone will be happy? –  Shadow Wizard Jan 24 '12 at 9:05
    
@ShaDowWizArd: I don't see a compelling reason to do so. Both questions stand quite happily on their own; the newer one is a duplicate of the older. The relative quality of the questions and answers is about the same; the newer post must have gotten Redditted, which is why it has so many more votes. Merging the two posts won't improve the clarity of either. –  Robert Harvey Jan 24 '12 at 16:03

2 Answers 2

Could be the post was flagged as a duplicate by a user and the moderator acted on the flag.

One of the users who answers even mentions it is a duplicate

http://stackoverflow.com/a/1034697/321505

The same question has been asked less than 24 hours ago.

So to answer your question

Is it a strict "we are redirecting this because the original one was posted before this one" or what?

Yes, pretty much, just because it's old doesn't give it a get out of jail free pass. Community policy has changed since two years ago and as such all questions must abide by it or have some sort of notice signifying why it has remained open.

A duplicate is a duplicate. The next logical step would be to merge answers so that it's all in one place.

share|improve this answer
    
It shouldn't necessarily be merged for the exact reason the closed question was found by the OP more easily- meta.stackexchange.com/questions/32311/do-not-delete-duplicates –  davidsleeps Jan 23 '12 at 22:50
    
@davidsleeps: Merging != deleting. Merging pushes them together and redirects the old question to the duplicated one. Deleting just flat-out removes it. –  animuson Jan 23 '12 at 22:53
    
@davidsleeps that's up for debate based on the OP query and whether or not the views were not due to say sharing on other sites. OP didn't really say what his query was. –  phwd Jan 23 '12 at 22:59
    
@animuson cool, that makes the most sense then... –  davidsleeps Jan 23 '12 at 23:09

I believe your concern is more that the newer, "more popular" question is closed as an exact duplicate rather than the earlier question as opposed to it being closed at all. Unfortunately, this is how "exact duplicate" works: a question can be a duplicate only of an earlier question, not of a later one, no matter how "popular" the later question is.

share|improve this answer
    
I reserve the right to declare as the master the question that is better. –  Robert Harvey Jan 24 '12 at 15:53

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