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The question referred to was rapidly re-opened, but this meta isn't about one specific question being closed as a dupe; it's about the user experience once that happens.


I'm a big boy now. I can handle the knock-backs, but imagine this was a new user.
I don't often ask questions on SU, so don't often get to see what the experience is as an asker.

I ask this question…

Simple Windows 10 view of any process preventing Sleep?

Within a few minutes it's closed as a dupe.

  1. It is absolutely not a dupe. the linked question totally fails to answer the question as asked.
  2. The user info banner is of absolutely zero use.
    enter image description here

As a new user it tells me the question has already been asked and has an answer… which it doesn't.

As an experienced user, I'd like to know who closed it… no info at all, there. Was it a gold badge with dupe-hammer privs, an admin, or did 5 other regular users think it was a dupe, all inside 5 minutes?
After comments I now realise I can see this in the new timeline feature [which I'd forgotten existed] - however I gained that knowledge from comments in here, I had no guidance to it from the question page or closed banner.

It gives me the opportunity to edit.
It doesn't tell me why I might want to edit it.
Once edited it still tells me nothing. It doesn't tell me about the Review queue. it gives no hint as to what process I might face to have it re-opened, or if such a process even exists. Nada. Just throws you right back to where you were.

Once edited… the Edit button is still there, so what do I do next?
Wander off never to return, after hitting 'Delete question' in a huff?

Or maybe do I go back to the only bit of hopeful info… "ask a new one"…
which we all know as experienced users will be closed inside 5 minutes as being a dupe of this one.

That is overall a very bad user experience.

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Thanks for raising this. I agree that this is not a good user experience and there's a ton of room for improvement when it comes to how we handle dupes, especially with how we communicate feedback to post authors when there are potential areas with a post to address. We plan on revisiting the overall question closing and feedback experience after we get through the next few months of our roadmap, and we'll share more about that work once we get started on it. Adding to this for now.

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  • Thank you for taking a look at this. My question suggested no fixes, as I doubt it's one click-of-the-fingers to fix. I thought just to highlight the negative experience & hope that ever-vague "someone" could take it further. Thanks again.
    – Tetsujin
    Feb 19, 2021 at 16:58
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    @Tetsujin You're welcome - this is also very personally important to me. I don't think anyone needs to have such a negative experience getting feedback about their post, and I think the current system is set up in a way that makes it feel very difficult for it to feel otherwise. More to come!
    – Jon Chan
    Feb 19, 2021 at 22:26

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