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Stop closing a question if it's a duplicate of a question which didn't get good or any answers.

(This is a request to the people who are in the habit of closing questions)

Addition: The goal is to GET good new answers.

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4 Answers 4

This is the exact purpose of close as duplicate.

The original question should either be updated with a new fresh answer, or the existing answers should be reviewed. There is absolutely no excuse for posting duplicates if the purpose of the site is to have one question with the latest and up to date answer.

If the question doesn't answer your question or has no answer, start a bounty for it.

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Problem with bounty is that you still lose the points if no one answers. –  Tony_Henrich Aug 25 '10 at 7:45
6  
@Tony if no one answers, the question was doomed anyway. Losing the bounty points is the risk you take. –  Pëkka Aug 25 '10 at 7:52

Stop complaining about that, click the "possible duplicate" link and post your answer there.

If you just seek an answer, do the same: click "possible duplicate" link, and read the answers there.

Actually, you seem to endorse behavior that prevents old question from getting more answers. You tell us: "hey, no one should look at older question, all the work should hapen only in the new ones! So let's not close the new!" IMHO that's the behavioral pattern that makes it useless to posting answers to old questions: answer seekers won't track that question and review answers there anyway--they'll just post a dupe instead. So why bother?

If your newly posted question will be closed as a dupe, the answerers would be attracted to it anyway, and may post better answers to the old question. So closing doesn't actually prevent you from getting good answers anyway.

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I am an answer seeker, not posting an answer. –  Tony_Henrich Aug 25 '10 at 7:51
    
@Tony, all right, added clarifications for you. –  Pavel Shved Aug 25 '10 at 8:06

-1. If the original question exists for the a long time but still cannot get a good answer, what makes you think the new, duplicated question will get a good answer, and will stay?

The proper action is to answer that original question, or merge the two questions (if there's already answers on both sides).

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3  
Actually it might, because there will be more users who can look at it, since SO & MSO has been growing over time, but merging, bumping and bounty is still the answer. –  Lance Roberts Aug 25 '10 at 6:58
    
Because new questions get a lot more attention than old inactive questions. Some users also search for questions with no answers which are typical the very new ones. The only time you hit an old question if it comes in a search result. –  Tony_Henrich Aug 25 '10 at 7:49
    
The goal is for someone to answer the second question. Your second suggestion doesn't apply. –  Tony_Henrich Aug 25 '10 at 7:50
1  
@Tony: (1) There will be a big link that redirects the attention to the old question. (2) Then that goal is wrong. –  KennyTM Aug 25 '10 at 8:00

In this situation you should flag the moderators to merge the questions. This will put all answers together, and probably bump the question, attracting new answerers.

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2  
If he has no answer, no point in merging, though. Better to keep the duplicate as another wording. Merging is really for "identical wording, different answers". –  Gnoupi Aug 25 '10 at 7:59

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