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A couple of days after answering a question, I noticed a comment by another user pointing to a possible duplicate target that was asked 4 months ago.

The questions are obvious duplicates and, due to the nature of the question, are answered in the same way. Small discrepancies exist between the questions but the gist of them is completely similar; I even edited the older question to make it more clear.

Questions on Meta asking about this ultimately lead to an answer by gnat quoting Shog who stated:

If the new question is a better question or has better answers, then vote to close the old one as a duplicate of the new one.

In this case the answers are practically identical; the questions do indeed differ but, not on a level where I can confidently assert if one's quality is superior. Their sole practical difference lies in the fact that one made it in the hot network questions and as such got a decent amount of exposure.

Now, I did not want to take unilateral actions and dupe-hammer one of these since I certainly have a conflict of interest by answering one of them.

So, what is the appropriate thing to do here? Should I close the old question for lacking exposure or, should I close the new one?

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    As they look right now I would make the old one a duplicate. I think popularity matters in such case.
    – πάντα ῥεῖ
    Commented Aug 25, 2016 at 5:52
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    Agreed. Imo, the new one is better.
    – Cerbrus
    Commented Aug 25, 2016 at 6:29

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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Due to a lack of more authoritative answers I decided to close the old question as a duplicate of the newest, more popular one.

This decision was taken mainly because the comments posted by @πάντα ῥεῖ and @Cerbrus on the question (and the respective vote count on those comments) indicate that the community seems to agree that popularity in such cases (and in such a degree) should play a role.

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People post duplicate in a hurry and not able find the other one easily. Why can't we allow duplicate question phrases and be it a symlink to original question. It will give more ways to reach an answer.

Update: We show existing Q&A's under "Questions that may already have your answer" when user types their title. We can extend this when user type the body of the question as well. That may show even more relevant answers and probably user might find one and stop duplicating.

People consciously duplicating usually refer other question and explain why theirs is different. I am just trying here to see a way to minimizing accidental duplication in first place.

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    Closing a question as duplicate does link it to the original and therefore point people to the answer. That's the whole point of closing as a duplicate. Duplicates aren't typically deleted unless they add nothing to the searchability of a problem.
    – Kendra
    Commented Aug 25, 2016 at 14:57
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    Thanks for the answer, but, this question isn't about what closing a question entails or how that should be "changed". I'm seeking to understand what factors I should consider when deciding which of the questions should be closed.
    – Dimitris Fasarakis Hilliard
    Commented Aug 25, 2016 at 15:08
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    "I am just trying here to see a way to minimizing accidental duplication in first place" Okay, but that is still not what the question is about. If this is your mission, start your own meta discussion. Although if you search you'll find that this is pretty thoroughly discussed already, so it will take some time for you to build up anything new out of all the pre-existing knowledge.
    – Gimby
    Commented Aug 26, 2016 at 8:56

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