Someone flagged my question as already answered, but it's not

Question

I asked a question regarding a very specific feature of a program and whether or not it works with a larger program. Within hours someone had marked it with "This question may already have an answer here of a similar question, but not related to my question.

The question I asked IS NOT ADDRESSED in the referred-to question. It's frustrating to spend half an hour putting together an intelligent and specific question, and then have someone mark it as a duplicate (or possible duplicate), which apparently causes people to skip over my question. I haven't received any more responses since the question was flagged.

Two questions: (1) How do I get this flagging removed and (2) what's the best way to prevent these "helpful" flaggings in the future?

Answer 1

When someone wants to close your question as a duplicate even when it's not, you should immediately edit (not re-post) the question to clarify that it is not.

Here's how not to do it:

EDIT: This is NOT a duplicate of the other question. Stop flagging this!

Instead, go back through your question and reword it a little. Maybe add a sentence or even just a few more adjectives. Also say something like

I have read [title of other question, linked to it] and it's helpful, but doesn't address [whatever].

This should be phrased in a way that makes sense even when the close votes are all gone, and is generally best in the body of the question, not as a comment under it. Not all close voters read the comments.

Don't get too excited if your question is wrongly suggested to be a duplicate. Just one close vote or close flag will add the banner when you view the question, but it won't be shown to anyone else at that point. It takes multiple votes or a user with a gold badge for one of the question's tags to actually close it. After you've edited in the clarification, the close vote may "age away", and users reviewing close votes may issue "leave open" reviews in a review queue.

Even if the question gets closed, it will be pretty simple to reopen it. You can edit your post and check the box to put the post into the review queue, or you may vote to reopen it yourself (if you have 250+ rep), and again it just takes the same amount of voters to reopen it.

Note that due to how the reopen review system works, if you or someone else has performed a minor edit after closure, you should perform a more substantive edit that clearly explains why it's not a duplicate, so that reviewers see it. (If the question is edited after closure, reviews see a diff of the edit rather than the question itself; sometimes reviewers just see the minor edit and don't bother to look at the question, and thus disagree with reopening it.)

Once your question has been reviewed in the review queue, the notice will indicate if others reviewed it and determined your question should still be closed. In this case, you can try again with another edit that makes it clearer your question isn't answered in the target. Reviewers can also specify that a different close reason applies to your question (such as if your edits make the question no longer a duplicate but it's now no longer in scope for the site); you can make another edit to address that other close reason.

If you tried editing again but your question was still left closed in review, or as an alternative, you can post a request on the per-site meta asking for it to be reopened and providing a clear argument. Be sure to clearly explain with details why your question isn't a duplicate or why the answers to that question don't address your question. If your question was left closed in review, it means other community members have already reviewed your question and determined the closure to be valid, so you should convince them with facts that they made the wrong decision.

In the end, being closed or marked as a duplicate isn't permanent for many questions; it's just a pause to improve.

Answer 2

what's the best way to prevent these "helpful" flaggings in the future?

Although you put this word into ironic quotes, it is helpful indeed, and instead of preventing, you better learn to use these flaggings to your advantage.

ode to dupes (from the asker's perspective:)

Just think of it: someone invested their effort, did some research and let you know that they believe your question has an answer elsewhere.

First thing to do when this happens (as you correctly did btw), is to go to the mentioned "possible duplicate" and study the answers given there.

Okay, now let's take a closer look at various possible outcomes of your study…

1. You discover that one of the answers in duplicate solves your issue

This is the best possible outcome, quite a pity it didn't happen to you this time. It occurred once or twice to me and have to admit, it felt… great. Just think of it, you get your answer, what could be better?

In cases like this I flag / or vote to close my own question myself.

The reason for "self-closure" is simple: since I found an answer, I want to save self from trouble of further "maintenance" of my question — you know, from studying and replying to possible comments, answers, from stuff like that.

Since I found an answer, I just don't need my question anymore, and the sooner I get it closed, the less I will need to worry about it in the future.

1.1. A less lucky (but still, lucky) variation of above…

…is when you find that although there is no answer to your question there (yet), the question itself is really the same as yours.

This isn't bad either, and in this case it also makes good sense to close-vote your own question — simply because this allows you to get rid of the need to maintain it. Instead, you can just follow the answers coming to the duplicate one.

2. You discover that duplicate only looks similar…

…but differs in essence from your question.

Okay, this is actually a pretty useful knowledge. Think of it, if it feels similar to you, then it might feel similar to other readers of your question who could in turn begin giving you useless answers addressing that similar question instead of yours. Now this is something worth preventing, isn't it?

You don't need answers telling you "do X" when you already know this won't help you, you need a way to "repel" these before they get in and begin wasting your efforts in cumbersome explanations that this is not what you need. Good news is, that "possible duplicate notification" gives you the means to prevent this.

• Think of it, before the mentioned notification you didn't even know that your question may be misread that way, that it can get useless answers because of this mis-interpretation. But, now you know, and you can use this knowledge to your advantage!

All you do is just edit your question and add something like:

There is another question that reads similar, but it is actually different, because of <explain what are the differences between what you need and what is needed in that other question>.

That's it! Any reader now clearly understands what kind answers aren't of interest for you, this saves you from being pestered by irrelevant stuff like that anymore.

3. You discover that "duplicate" is totally different, obviously irrelevant.

That's the least useful outcome, but still…

If you think of it, "possible duplicate notification" warns you that someone dumb enough may misread your question in a really weird way (and, well, bother you by posting respectively weird answers and comments).

This risk is rather minor compared to previous case (similar-but-different) but thing is, preventing it is much easier, too. Since you already invested (wasted) some effort on studying that useless not-a-dupe-at-all, just put a little extra effort into "converting" it into something at least marginally useful to you.

For that, you just edit your question and add at its bottom something like,

Side note I also studied another question to find out maybe there's something useful to me there, but it turned out totally irrelevant because of <put an obvious, easy to understand, explanation "for dummies" here>.

Answer 3

_{A follow up to Kate's answer, which seems to merit its own answer}

Use Kate's suggestion, but preemptively. If you've done your research properly, it is highly likely you will have already found the supposed duplicate. When you are posting your question for the first time, you can say something like:

I've found a similar question [link to it] but it doesn't address the specific problem of [xyz].

This has a two fold benefit in addition to heading off possible marks as duplicates. It helps others needing a similar solution. (Interestingly, they might find yours first, see that it does NOT do what they need, but they then find the other solution which you linked to.) The other related benefit is these links in the post show up over in the Links panel on the right side ... and even faster way to find stuff.