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edited Mar 20, 2017 at 10:04

In my opinion, the mods on this site are way overzealous about marking things duplicate.

Quite often the first time someone asks a question the question and answer can be suboptimal. Maybe the first question is harder to find, less clear, or burdened by heavy discussion.

Example 1 "Change file's timestamp":

Here's the question I found, which is marked as duplicate:
How can I change the timestamp on a file?How can I change the timestamp on a file?

The wording is perfect is you want to change a file's timestamp. Also, this question has been viewed over 73k times. However, it's marked as a duplicate of these questions:
How to modify timestamp in a dll or exe?How to modify timestamp in a dll or exe?
Windows equivalent of the Linux command 'touch'?Windows equivalent of the Linux command 'touch'?

Both of these questions might tell you how to modify a timestamp, but it's not at all obvious by the title. If someone doesn't already know that touch can modify a timestamp, then they would never know that's a good place to look.

The "modify timestamp in a dll" answer has only been viewed 7k times, and it's a year older than the "duplicate".

Example 2 "Unable to rsync"

Recently my question Unable to rsync to another volume with Git Bash Unable to rsync to another volume with Git Bash was marked as a duplicate of Why cwRsync doesn't work on Windows?Why cwRsync doesn't work on Windows?.

This example has three issues.

First, the "original" question was never marked answered, but there's a somewhat highly voted answer so I don't know if it was just never marked or actually never answered.
Second, I don't know if that program is the same. Sure, there's definitely some shared code between this rsync and the cwRsync, but I still don't know if they're the same. (Also many things can clearly cause the same error messages).
Third, to prove that I researched the question I had to provide so much proof that now my question is polluted by all the things that didn't work. Someone who wants to answer or ask the same thing shouldn't have to relive my hours of research that I spent trying to answer this question, which I had originally edited down to a relatively short question.

Quite often on the StackExchange platform I find questions that I want answered but they're marked as duplicate or locked and the "original" (or old and outdated answers) don't answer my question. There's no good place to ask "hey, how does this other thing solve this problem?" or perhaps "hey, is that other thing solved?".

In my opinion, the mods on this site are way overzealous about marking things duplicate.

Quite often the first time someone asks a question the question and answer can be suboptimal. Maybe the first question is harder to find, less clear, or burdened by heavy discussion.

Example 1 "Change file's timestamp":

Here's the question I found, which is marked as duplicate:
How can I change the timestamp on a file?

The "modify timestamp in a dll" answer has only been viewed 7k times, and it's a year older than the "duplicate".

Example 2 "Unable to rsync"

Recently my question Unable to rsync to another volume with Git Bash was marked as a duplicate of Why cwRsync doesn't work on Windows?.

This example has three issues.

First, the "original" question was never marked answered, but there's a somewhat highly voted answer so I don't know if it was just never marked or actually never answered.
Second, I don't know if that program is the same. Sure, there's definitely some shared code between this rsync and the cwRsync, but I still don't know if they're the same. (Also many things can clearly cause the same error messages).
Third, to prove that I researched the question I had to provide so much proof that now my question is polluted by all the things that didn't work. Someone who wants to answer or ask the same thing shouldn't have to relive my hours of research that I spent trying to answer this question, which I had originally edited down to a relatively short question.

In my opinion, the mods on this site are way overzealous about marking things duplicate.

Quite often the first time someone asks a question the question and answer can be suboptimal. Maybe the first question is harder to find, less clear, or burdened by heavy discussion.

Example 1 "Change file's timestamp":

Here's the question I found, which is marked as duplicate:
How can I change the timestamp on a file?

The "modify timestamp in a dll" answer has only been viewed 7k times, and it's a year older than the "duplicate".

Example 2 "Unable to rsync"

Recently my question Unable to rsync to another volume with Git Bash was marked as a duplicate of Why cwRsync doesn't work on Windows?.

This example has three issues.

First, the "original" question was never marked answered, but there's a somewhat highly voted answer so I don't know if it was just never marked or actually never answered.
Second, I don't know if that program is the same. Sure, there's definitely some shared code between this rsync and the cwRsync, but I still don't know if they're the same. (Also many things can clearly cause the same error messages).
Third, to prove that I researched the question I had to provide so much proof that now my question is polluted by all the things that didn't work. Someone who wants to answer or ask the same thing shouldn't have to relive my hours of research that I spent trying to answer this question, which I had originally edited down to a relatively short question.

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asked Mar 22, 2016 at 20:10

geneorama

1.4k
6

Overzealous duplicate marking

In my opinion, the mods on this site are way overzealous about marking things duplicate.

Quite often the first time someone asks a question the question and answer can be suboptimal. Maybe the first question is harder to find, less clear, or burdened by heavy discussion.

Example 1 "Change file's timestamp":

Here's the question I found, which is marked as duplicate:
How can I change the timestamp on a file?

The "modify timestamp in a dll" answer has only been viewed 7k times, and it's a year older than the "duplicate".

Example 2 "Unable to rsync"

Recently my question Unable to rsync to another volume with Git Bash was marked as a duplicate of Why cwRsync doesn't work on Windows?.

This example has three issues.

First, the "original" question was never marked answered, but there's a somewhat highly voted answer so I don't know if it was just never marked or actually never answered.
Second, I don't know if that program is the same. Sure, there's definitely some shared code between this rsync and the cwRsync, but I still don't know if they're the same. (Also many things can clearly cause the same error messages).
Third, to prove that I researched the question I had to provide so much proof that now my question is polluted by all the things that didn't work. Someone who wants to answer or ask the same thing shouldn't have to relive my hours of research that I spent trying to answer this question, which I had originally edited down to a relatively short question.

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