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When a question gets closed as a possible duplicate, Community ♦ edits the post to insert the "duplicate link":

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That's great! We should be directing users to the "original" question. The problem with this approach, however, is that this useful path between posts can be broken. Any user can go in and edit the post to edit or remove this link:

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Or in the case of this question, a suggested edit made before the question was closed and approved afterward, can indirectly remove this link.

The result being that you have a question that was closed as a "possible duplicate", but no mention of said duplicate post at all! This is not helpful.


Therefor, I propose that the "Possible Duplicate" link box NOT be inserted into question's body. It should be separate and handled similar to the question-status ("closed as ...") box.

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(Thanks to @soandos and @Paul for the idea.)

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    there's a auto redirect for anon users to the dupe question.
    – Sathyajith Bhat Mod
    Jul 23, 2012 at 5:28
  • @Sathya Do "closed as duplicate" questions get deleted after a certain age?
    – iglvzx
    Jul 23, 2012 at 5:29
  • I fixed the question in question but this should probably be looked at. Jul 23, 2012 at 5:30
  • 2
    @iglvzx not unless a question is migrated, or voted to delete. Jul 23, 2012 at 5:30
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    On the pro side, it allows users to add additional links to questions with additional answers. It's also the only way question "originals" are exposed to the Data.SE API, so that would need to be changed as well.
    – Daniel Beck Mod
    Jul 23, 2012 at 6:40
  • @Sathya There's an auto-redirect? I don't get one when loading it in an incognito window.
    – slhck
    Jul 23, 2012 at 10:48
  • @slhck Automatically redirect anonymous user from unanswered duplicate question to corresponding answered version indicates there is a redirect for unanswered dupes - not sure if it's active on questions with no answers
    – Sathyajith Bhat Mod
    Jul 23, 2012 at 10:52

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