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Question about Questions

  1. I wonder why so many duplicate questions make it to be triaged by humans on Stack Exchange in certain communities so frequently in the unanswered queues?

    It's like the showdown to see who can find the quickest duplicate question and\or correlated answer on SE with a quick Google search, internal SE search, or some hook or funnel into the backend perhaps, etc. finding and posting hyperlinks in comments (and answers sometimes).

  2. If the title field auto-populate feature, or the similar question auto-populate feature when creating a new question, doesn't list something relevant and sufficient for you, then why do so many "people" always refer to "potential" duplicate with a hyperlink?

Is there a Solution (my suggestion (more questions))

It seems a bit deficient, when people focus attention on finding (or having to post) "potential" duplicate questions and/or answers rather than concentrating on the "greatest" answer they could give.

  1. If it's an obvious duplicate, then why not force the OP to say "no this Q&A does NOT help me with this question" so please allow it to be posted for others to advise or assist???
  2. Could there be logic or some type of flow implemented that enforces the option as indicated in the above paragraph (i.e. "why not force the OP to say")?

The answerer\replier should feel confident that the OP already saw the most "obvious" and "already answered and accepted" answer(s) specifically checking that it didn't help (and perhaps a little flag or something to indicate if they tick it as (this post or Q&A) NOT helpful).

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I'm understanding

Yes, I'm very understanding and some slipping through the cracks seems reasonable, so even if it helps 1 out of 5 or something, it'd potentially. . .

Potential Upsides of a Solution

  • cut down on people asking questions from having to wait for someone to tell you "possible duplicate" look "here", and force the person to acknowledge at least that the top 2-3 similar posts that auto-populated were not helpful in their particular instance

  • cut down potential duplicates from even hitting the unanswered queues

  • be helpful in getting more upvotes on great "answers" (and questions) in similar posts that already exist giving even more incentive for great answers to everyone

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    I am with you on this, they should forget the backup (one day) and hard drive dies and start the whole thing over again from Zero Q&As. People can keep the rep they have and all fresh new answers for everyone :-) There have been people who specified in their question the answers that do not work for them, in lists of fails even :-) If you have been here long enough you would see everything really is a dupe, it is just asked a little differently. And NO! people do not always search, , and people do not nessisarily know what to search for, or they might not even ask anything :-)
    – Psycogeek
    Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 2:43
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    Your post starts out as if you're interested in somehow reducing the number of dupe questions, but then you go completely off the rails on a rant and offer no good solutions or any coherent reasoning whatsoever, instead sharing your apparent perception that most dupe close votes are incorrect and unhelpful. While I am not in any way defending bad close vote practices, I don't think that complaining about it is especially constructive, and my experience is that a majority of duplicate close votes are "legit"; i.e., the question being asked is exactly the same as in another question.
    – allquixotic
    Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 3:07
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    @LMFAO_A_JOKE - The problem with your idea is that, everyone feels their problem is unique, even though it isn't. We get hundreds of questions on how to remove malware here at Superuser, we have one question the community has spent a great deal of time answering, nearly all questions about how to remove malware is a duplicate of that single question. There is not a small percent of question authors, who ask how to remove a specific infection, that claims that despite that question having a combined knowledge of the community on how to remove malware, that that canonical question isn't helpful
    – Ramhound
    Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 13:33
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    @LMFAO_A_JOKE - My point is that most people for that very reason will pick the option that will keep their question "alive" once they understand this "system: of allowing the author decided if the duplicate is a duplicate instead of allowing the people answering the question decide if its already been answered. IN other words the author, by the very fact they are asking the question, isn't in a position to decide if the question is a duplicate or not.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Dec 31, 2015 at 13:34
  • Can I get a downvote.... Amen Hallelujah!!!
    – Vomit IT - Chunky Mess Style
    Commented Jul 26, 2018 at 3:06
  • Excellent observation. +1
    – user1061912
    Commented May 10, 2020 at 21:01

1 Answer 1

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  1. I wonder why so many duplicate questions make it to be triaged by humans on Stack Exchange in certain communities so frequently in the unanswered queues?

Because people would rather post their question then actually search for more than 2 seconds for an answer. Or they just couldn't find when they tried (bad Search-Fu skills).

2.If the title field auto-populate feature, or the similar question auto-populate feature when creating a new question, doesn't list something relevant and sufficient for you, then why do so many "people" always refer to "potential" duplicate with a hyperlink?

Because humans are excellent at recognizing duplicates based on context and intention, computers are not. We mark possible duplicates so that the OP can find the best answer(s) to their question.

It seems a bit deficient, when people focus attention on finding (or having to post) "potential" duplicate questions and/or answers rather than concentrating on the "greatest" answer they could give.

Finding a (potential) dupe, if it exists, is about 10000x easier than writing a quality answer (in most cases). People who have no expertise in an area may not be able to give an answer, but they can still often spot a duplicate question.

3.If it's an obvious duplicate, then why not force the OP to say "no this Q&A does NOT help me with this question" so please allow it to be posted for others to advise or assist???

So if the system detects a list of possible duplicate suggestions (which almost ALWAYS happens), you're suggesting the user should have to go though and check-mark each answer on each ('top 2 or 3') possible duplicate as "this didn't help me", before they'd be allowed to post their question?

If so, that'd much more 'deficient' in my eyes.

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  • No worries. I appreciate you trying to figure things out. Hopefully my answers helped. ;) "this just helps contribute to more unanswered questions I suppose unless dupes that are confirmed are eventually tagged, reviewed, and removed." Questions closed as duplicates are not deleted, they are left in place to help searchers find the answers (via the "duplicate of:...", and "related" links, etc.).
    – Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007
    Commented Jan 5, 2016 at 14:24

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