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I think it would be beneficial to be able to easily access the details of closed questions, on the remaining questions page (i.e., how other questions were worded, so as to avoid creating tickets that will just get closed / others comments prior to closure). What does the community think?

Addendum (1)

Subsequent to animuson's pointing out that this functionality does exist, I would like to suggest it be made more prominent / repositioned to be more inline with the main content.

Addendum (2)

It would appear from only one of the suggested duplicates on this question, that the linked questions functionality (to me) is either done manually for either pre-closing comments / answers (by ¿reviewers?) and / or during the closing process. If the latter is manual, would like to suggest it be automatic, so that human error wouldn't prevent posters from knowing where to look for the pre-answered question.

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2 Answers 2

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All questions which get closed as a duplicate of a question are linked at the right. For example, this question you asked is listed on the duplicated question:

Linked Questions

As well, closed questions still show up in search results, just with the [closed] appendage at the end. Users who view that question will be able to quickly find the duplicated question via the automatically inserted box at the top of the question.

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    Thanks @animuson - However, I think this pane needs to be more obvious for those of us that associate the side panes to be more for advertising, and less than related content (I will amend the question with a subsequent request). However, can I ask if this is always done / automatic? I certainly wishes someone would have informed me of this back when I first started using this great site - superuser.com/questions/241483/portable-screen-capture-app
    – user66001
    Commented Dec 4, 2012 at 1:23
  • for the record, feature request to make this pane more obvious is Position / Styling of Linked Questions
    – gnat
    Commented Nov 20, 2013 at 7:46
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If I understand you properly, you think this is a valid learning path:

  • read a question that is open and has good answers
  • note that some other questions were closed as duplicates of this one
  • navigate to those questions and read them to see what not to do

And to that end, you want the "note" and "navigate" steps to be easier. But there are problems with that:

First, questions that are closed as duplicates are not good examples of "What not to do." They might be beautifully written and stand as examplars of good questions, if not for the fact someone else already asked the same thing. Or they might be very poorly written and never got polished or edited by the community, because they were duplicates.

Second, you're already looking at a great example of what to do. The open question you start from is probably pretty good: it has an answer, maybe several, it's still open, people are using it as the target for dupe-closing.

Third, if you want to read closed questions to see what doesn't belong here, why restrict yourself to the occasional dupe you come across by link following? Just search for [closed] and you'll find all the horrible examples you want. Or click on a tag you care about to get questions in that tag, then click on Votes to sort by votes, and at the bottom click the large number by next to see the all time low downvoted questions in that tag. Here's a C++ example. These questions are bad, and if you want to learn from bad questions, there are plenty to choose from.

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