I sometimes come across double posts (the exact same question, same user, posted within a short time). An example is this: , , posted with a minute or two between them. My reaction was to vote to close the newer of the two questions, while I can see that someone voted to close the older of them. What would be the preferred way here?
9010
I have seen this many times, a question is being asked because a previous, duplicate question was asked and answered a few years ago and has no longer relevant answers.  The  is to edit the old question, or add new answers to it, but it is not always happening.  I was wondering, should I still mark it as duplicate and vote to close it? Or just leave it as is?
19551
Regarding , made by me, and general questions in this matter. I did receive decent answers on the question that was asked, but it wasn't asked clear enough by me I now see. I do not want to invalidate the answers by completely restructuring the question. Should one post a new question ignoring the other? or Should one refer to their old post and writing a short &quot;because x I reposted this...&quot;?
119159
Consider the following scenario please:   I see a question and think I have a good answer or comment. I post my answer or comment and move on happily. After couple of hours I see comments that my answer is bad because this and that and it's really bad - I didn't think enough before posting.   The question is: should I delete my post, or leave it be so that people won't repeat my own mistake?
92661
Sometimes, when I answer a question on Stack Overflow, I have two different answers that are equally valid. This happens most when answering architectural questions where there are many valid ways to solve a problem.  Is it better to put each alternative into a single answer, or put each alternative in its own answer?  Posted each alternative separately will allow the voting system to float the best answer to the top, but I don't want to be accused of rep whoring by "flooding" a question with answers.  What's your opinion? One or two answers?
42628
How difficult would it be to detect cross-posts when the relevant questions have identical titles and content, and are posted by the same user? As an example:        If this is technically possible,  I'm not sure what the best response would be?   Notify the user when asking the question that . For off-topic cross-posts (e.g. the above example): Let the question be closed as off-topic, and then automatically block or flag the question as an exact duplicate during migration. For on-topic cross posts (eg a game programming question on SO and gamedev): Not sure what the process is for flagging/closing cross-posts, but whatever it is, can we automate some aspect of that? Something else?   (Edited to remove request for auto-detecting same-site re-posting, which has already been implemented since the example I listed occurred)
14023
This question has been asked several times in similar (yet often slightly different) ways.  The general consensus seems to be that it's best to ask multiple questions individually in multiple Question posts so that each can be addressed separately. This is as it should be...in general (and in theory!). See related posts for some context and discussion:        In practice, however, it can be more useful to ask a few similar questions if they work together to express a single fundamental concern.   I propose that there are some situations when it is best to ask several questions together, rather than in multiple posts.  For example, sometimes the question-asker finds it difficult to ask something in one question and instead asks it in two or three similar questions to "beat around the bush". This often helps the poster express their fundamental concern more clearly or thoroughly and helps the community understand what the poster is thinking, and why.   Here are a few examples of multiple questions used effectively in a single post:        In these examples, answering one of the questions almost requires answering one of the accompanying questions as well. For this reason, it's better for all if the questioner and answerer each ask and answer these related questions together. Importantly, it also makes the question a much better resource for somebody who stumbles on that that question later, or has a similar question. As pointed out in , asking a cluster of questions can help distinguish one question from a near-duplicate and avoid an incorrect flagging as a duplicate.  In other cases (such as ), it's probably best to split the questions into multiple posts, but the end result can be a highly-useful repository of knowledge that is a "one-stop-shop".   I'm not satisfied with some SX users demanding separate posts for similar questions if the questions are essentially expressing the same concern. I'm also not satisfied with the prevalence of posts with multiple, disparate questions.   My question is this:    When is it okay to post multiple questions?  How can we distinguish between multiple questions that ought to be split vs. multiple questions that work together to express a single fundamental concern?  What guidelines or standards can we give and enforce for the community?    This is different than the related posts I've seen because I'm looking for guidelines. Whereas  was asking about how the user should frame his questions in the future, I'm asking what the SX guidelines should be.
33639
I was browsing SO today when I stumbled across these two questions:    So, both questions are closed.*  The problem?  Each questions is closed as a duplicate of the other; within one minute of each other (they were both closed "8 minutes ago" when I first checked).  Can we add a feature to detect this and prevent a circular Close as Duplicate like this?  Better yet, prevent newer questions than the current one from showing up in the Close as Duplicate list.  *As of 2010/06/17 18:32 UTC the first question is now reopened and the second deleted.
1446
When is it okay to post two answers to one question?
52942
Before you vote to close: there are a lot of questions with titles and/or bodies that are similar to this one. However, none of the ones I saw deal with this particular case.    I have an  that is appropriately closed as a duplicate of an FAQ entry. I just tried to delete it because it doesn't really add any useful search terms or overall value to MSO. I got the following message:     Sorry, this question has answers and cannot be deleted; flag it for moderator attention instead.   That's the same message that comes up when you try to delete your own unclosed answered questions. Since I'm a 10k user, I think the system should at least allow me to cast a regular, non-binding delete vote for that post, if not delete it unilaterally.  I also think that 20k users attempting to delete their own recently closed posts shouldn't have to wait through the 48-hour "possible reopening" period, but since my example question was closed over a year ago I don't know what the system actually does.
18465
I've noticed quite a few cases () where people not only vote to close a question, but then also answer said question. At best this is just silly, and at worst it is totally hypocritical and seems almost like rep whoring (since often the closers answers are the only ones that remain to be voted on since no new answers can be given).  If you want to close a question, it makes more sense to simply add a comment if you feel the need to say something. This also leaves the option open for the author of the question to delete it if they want to. If the author realizes they've asked a duplicate, or they want to avoid the onslaught of downvotes that can often accompany a closed question, they should be allowed to delete it. However, if any answers to the question have upvotes, the author can't delete it.  So why do people answer and close? Should we try to crack down on this sort of thing, via either new features, clearly stating it in the FAQs, or just getting the word out through commenting when we see it?  EDIT: Just to clarify, I'm asking this in relation to SO, not MetaSO.
23819
before :         after :        This is confusing. This is two different designs for the same thing. To sum the changes up:   Different banner on top of the post. Before: banner pushed as part of post contents and can be edited.   Worth to mention the "marked as duplicate by ..." message in the bottom is the same.  Suggested fix: simply run a script that within the same transaction Reopens all questions closed as duplicates before Feb 7th 2013 then closes them again as exact duplicates. If possible prevent this from bumping the question i.e. don't update the "last activity" time stamp.
61938
I was browsing  discussion () and noticed in the related posts lists the following difference in the score on a  question ().        I first noticed the related question be shown in linked nearly 3 minutes after  was left.    Hidden feature-request  Can we please stop displaying the same question from appearing in both lists? If a question is appearing under the linked posts list, it should not appear with the related questions too. Also, the difference in votes makes my eyes sore. It has been there for more than an hour now.
79223
Most of the time, you don't want to see unanswered questions in the duplicate dialog, since you can't normally close as a duplicate of them. This behavior is intended, at least as it says :     The search results include only answered questions (per the usual SO definition of "answered", where the question must have an accepted or up-voted answer).   But there are times when you can close against something unanswered:   On meta Questions with the same author   But the dialog doesn't show unanswered posts in those circumstances.  In the past, I have wondered why I was mysteriously unable to find some specific posts in the duplicate dialog. For example:   I saw two near-identical posts by the same user. I was unable to find the duplicate in the dialog, even after typing in the exact title or using the user:1 search trick. On meta,  does not show up in the dialog. I posted about this before, on , but at that point I only knew it affected that one post (the joke's on whomever got rid of "too localized" I guess).   In both cases, I had to go get the URL and paste it in manually.    The best way to see this is to use answers:0. I hope you don't think there are only two unanswered questions here!        Most of the time, the results for this search are merged questions (but not all the merged questions). I have no clue why that one post shows up here. (Maybe it was merged and un-merged at some point?) This current behavior is pretty useless.    It should be very easy to fix the dialog on meta. It might take a little more effort to have the same user's posts show up on main, but I can't imagine it being prohibitively difficult.
47649
When I post a question and want to add a new line, I have to press Return two times, or else the next text will appear on the same line.  Is this really supposed to behave this way? If so, why?
95212
Why are we allowed to ask only one question per 40 minutes? Shouldn't this time be reduced?  Also, when I was posting my second question on Computer Science.SE then this time limit was 40 minutes but when I head towards posting this question, here at meta, then it was showing 20 minutes limit. What is the logic behind this difference?
33889
I have asked  which I don't honestly think is a duplicate of the question linked as motivation for closing. They are both about java, but one is about the language and the other one about its applications in the real world. They are sure related but not exact duplicates by any means. Yet it took just a few minutes to find 5 people willing to close it.  Why is it so? Do similar questions really pollute SO so much? Is closing a question like that so urgent that you can't leave it open for a while and see if it meets interest in the community? Do people just do it because they have the power to do so and they like to use it?  SO should be a community site about programming, not about who's the quickest sheriff.  EDIT: edited subject as I meant "close" instead of "delete"
29012
I just asked my first question on stackoverflow and I'm really impressed that my question seems to be answered sufficiently already! See:    The issue I have is that the last two answers combined would provide the most complete answer. What's the proper way to go about combining them, marking the question answered, and giving credit where credit is due?  Thanks big time guys for saving us all from experts exchange hell!  Edit: Wow, 5 responses in 5 minutes. I think what makes the most sense is that I create my own answer out of the two. I don't think the second part of my question was answered though.  What is the proper way to give credit to the 2 answers that I'm combining? Is an upvote for each sufficient?