27

Link-only answers are never fine. If you need to link to a SuperUser question or answer in order to answer a question, vote or flag to close the question as a duplicate of that question. If linking to the other question does not provide enough information, but you want to provide the same type of answer to express that it's one possible way of doing that, ...


23

When a "duplicate" close vote or flag is cast, a box appears above the question visible to the question's owner. It prompts the author to either edit the question to clarify its non-duplicateness or accept the duplicity by pressing a "yes, that solved my problem" button. If the user chooses that button, the Community user casts the final duplicate vote, ...


15

Someone went and edited the duplicate close banner, which normally shouldn't be able to happen. The problem in this case is that the question was closed before the current system was put in place and the the banner was handled differently back then. I have edited it and re-closed it to fix the duplicate banner. The way to go about reporting this is either ...


15

If the questions are duplicates, one should be closed as such. In that case, it should be explained to the user that we prefer information to be centralized, so they should flag instead of posting the same answer to both. Once the duplicate question relationship is established, one of the duplicate answers can be deleted. Those two questions look pretty ...


14

There's nothing legally wrong with copying an answer wholesale, provided there's clear attribution. Content creators agreed to those guidelines when they posted on a Stack Exchange site. That said, I'm not sure that copying in other sites' answers is the best thing to do. If a certain topic is acceptable at multiple Stack Exchange sites, there's a good ...


13

In the end what matters is giving our users better answers. Given the question wasn't closed as a dupe before getting better answers, I'd say the order is no longer important. So I'd say yes: close the question with the inferior answers as a dupe of the question with superior answers or leave them both open if they are sufficiently distinct.


13

Post it as new question? This is the correct action to take, as it will give your problem the visibility it needs in order to get an answer. You should ask a new question, referencing the old one if appropriate. Comment in the original, answered question? Asking in a comment on an old answer to the old question is problematic because: The person who ...


12

List of Canonical Questions/Answers that can be used as Duplicate Targets How can I remove malicious spyware, malware, adware, viruses, trojans or rootkits from my PC?? How do I recover lost/inaccessible data from my storage device? What are PATH and other environment variables, and how can I set or use them? What can I do if I forgot my Windows password?...


11

It seems as though some users on Stack Exchange are a bit trigger-happy when it comes to closing questions.  Somebody asks "How do I do X on Windows 10?", and it gets closed as a duplicate of "How do I do X on Windows 7?"  Or Solaris and Linux.  Or bash and zsh.  And the talking heads come out and say, "Well, it's the same question.  If those answers don't ...


11

If you don't have a lot of time but want to be helpful: Comment on the question, leaving a link to the older question Otherwise, I'd go for: Quote that answer (or reword it, possibly making it more valuable) and flag older (more specific) question as a duplicate Generally, links to other posts on Super User are not as prone to link rot as external ...


10

Sounds like it's time for a community-faq! The purpose of a Community FAQ is to provide a comprehensive, detailed, generic canonical post on a frequently asked subject. Check out other questions in this tag for examples. I think a "how to dual-boot linux and Windows" post, with a basic how-to and some more detailed info about specific common edge cases ...


9

No. If its your own question, a bounty is the right way, assuming you have the reputation. If you want to add more helpful, relevant details, go ahead (Thats to say, don't edit to bump. Edit to include more relevant information). If its a related tangential question, sufficiently distinct to warrant its own question, you can refer back to the old one, but ...


8

As far as I know, excerpts of already posted answers are ok as long as they respect original authorship, e.g. including a link to the original answer. If the newer answers are blatant copies (which in my opinion also involves the case you mention) of existing answers, I'd flag for moderator attention explaining this is a copy of an already posted answer so ...


8

What would be the best approach here (1 or 2)? What if I disagree with the closure of a question? How can I reopen it? Stack Exchange is collaboratively built, maintained, and moderated by the community. If you see a question and you disagree with the stated reason of its closure, you should first try to edit the question to improve it as much ...


7

Short Answer The blurb is basically good advice but the wording could be improved. This isn't what bounties are for. Don't be overly concerned about the dupe, yet. Think of it more in terms of "when" than "if". Long Answer The point of the bounty system: Bounties are good for the author of the question when no good answers have been ...


6

Most questions closed as duplicates are...duplicates Why are questions able to be marked as duplicate without some more in depth review? To be closed as 'duplicate' a question must be reviewed by no less than 5 separate community members (or more rarely, a single moderator or user that's earned a gold badge in one of the question's tags). This process ...


5

The various aspects of the question are well laid out and I completely agree with Ben N's answer. What I want to focus on is the relative "gravity" of the issues. One set of issues relates to scope and fit, and the preferred style of handling this. That deserves careful consideration and discussion because it will be somewhat of a precedent. The other is ...


5

The only option is to post a complaint on a per incident basis within meta super user. That's one option. The other options are If you have 3k+ rep, you can vote to reopen Editing the question to make it clear why it's not a duplicate not only puts it into reopen queue, also bumps it up to the front page allowing for people to vote to reopen You can flag ...


5

You can choose other (needs ♦ moderator attention) as the flag and write whatever you want. Just let us know that it's a duplicate and put the link to the question on the other site in there. That helps a lot :)


4

Not just on the same network. We only mark questions as duplicates if they are on the same site, e.g. a question can exist on both SU and SO wihtout being marked as duplicates. See: What to do with cross-site duplicates? You can comment with a link to that other site, if you want to. If you wish to provide an answer, please make sure the answer is more than ...


4

In short, the system wants you to put up a bounty. Let me clear one thing up though. The Accepted Answer check mark does not mean "This is the correct answer". It means "This is the answer that worked for the OP". Thus, it doesn't matter that you can't change it when working with the question of someone else. Editing (and, thus, improving) a question is ...


4

If it exists on both sites it should be worded to fit the different audiences. If they're not, one should be surrendered, migrated and merged with the other. If you do find the answer exists better or bests on another site in the network, just quote it, link back with attribution and maybe even frame it, again, for the audience you're answering among. So ...


4

I feel the right way to do something that might be to the 'letter' but not the spirit of the rules would have been to ask on meta first. This is one of those cases. It sets a bad precedent both for our site and others - especially since the questions/answers are copies. While I appreciate the 'intent' the worst case scenario is someone less scrupulous ...


3

I did some quick research and found some precedent: example precedent #1 says "Yes, it is perfectly acceptable to mark an older post as a duplicate of a newer one. The duplicate banner is a road sign for future readers; it should point to the best answer(s) available, be they under the older or newer version of the question." example precedent #2 says "If a ...


3

Rephrase the close reason to invite the user to provide information demonstrating why their question is not a duplicate, rather than confusingly suggesting that the best course of action is to create another question: This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please edit your ...


3

Well, in some way it is a duplicate. The specific question about Chrome not pinning to the taskbar is an instance of the general problem described in the other question. Closing it would be a logical step, and we often do that in such cases. Now, in this situation, the "general" solutions obviously didn't work, and there are more specific solutions to the ...


3

First things first: It was me who handled the flag. I sincerely apologize for giving you the wrong feedback and agree that it wasn't really helpful in that case. I just saw a >3k user flagging for a duplicate, and didn't see the need to handle it. That being said, there is absolutely no reason to worry about flag weight or one declined flag. Unless you ...


3

Why not have the best of both worlds! With one of the newer releases of Stack Exchange, if multiple questions are linked in the VTC process, then all links are displayed: This allows for users to multiple questions that may be related to the closed one, even ones that are already closed.


3

If you believe that your question is not a duplicate then the first thing to do is to edit it in order to clarify what makes it distinct from the duplicate question. Basically you should be telling us why the answers on that question do not work or why your question is not the same. By editing your question it will go into a review queue to be reopened. ...


3

None of the answers to the proposed question correctly answer mine Please see the instructions in the help article Why are some questions marked as duplicate?: If you see a question and do not agree that it truly is a duplicate, edit it to highlight the differences, then try to get it reopened by casting a reopen vote.


Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
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