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The accepted answer to this question says that when you click "flag" on a question, there is an option called "it is a duplicate". When I click "flag", though, I only see the following options:

  • it is spam
  • it is offensive, abusive, or hate speech
  • it is very low quality [Note: this option doesn't appear on meta sites]
  • other (needs ♦ moderator attention)

Below is a screenshot (external mirror) of what I see when I try to flag this question. Why don't I see the "it is a duplicate" option?

enter image description here

After some additional troubleshooting, I have discovered that I do see the "duplicate" option when I try to flag questions on Meta Stack Overflow. However, I do not see the option on Stack Overflow, Ask Ubuntu, or Meta Ask Ubuntu. I just received the flag privilege on Stack Overflow today, but I have had it for several days on Ask Ubuntu and Meta Ask Ubuntu.

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    I see the flag as duplicate option on the question you linked. Do you see it on other questions? It's not listed on the privleges list, but I wonder if it is reputation-based.
    – thunderblaster
    Commented Jan 23, 2014 at 17:35
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    @thunderblaster there shouldn't be a separate privilege for "flag to close" or "flag as duplicate", however the OP just got the flag privilege today. My first guess is that maybe the UI hasn't updated yet to correctly reflect the privileges that he has now.
    – psubsee2003
    Commented Jan 23, 2014 at 17:37
  • I just realized I do see the "duplicate" option when I try to flag questions on meta stackoverflow, but not on stackoverflow, askubuntu, or meta askubuntu (and I've already had flag privilege on askubuntu for several days).
    – Cerran
    Commented Jan 23, 2014 at 17:39
  • @psubsee2003 Yes, I've tried it on several questions, including questions that were still open with no answers and were created 2 minutes ago, 13 minutes ago, and a few years ago.
    – Cerran
    Commented Jan 23, 2014 at 17:43

1 Answer 1

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You don't see it because flagging a question as a duplicate automatically creates a "possible duplicate" comment, and you do not have enough rep (50) to earn the "comment everywhere" privilege. You're also missing the off topic options from the flag dialog for the same reason. This was put in place to address a 404 bug.

You do have the option here on MSO because the required rep for commenting everywhere is 1, meaning everyone has the privilege.

If someone here with 20k+ would edit the flagging privilege wiki and add a remark about this, that would be super. I'm unsure of the editing process for these pages and am having trouble tracking down current information, but the flagging privilege page could use an update to address this.

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    Perhaps the privileges need updated to address this since it is not very intuitive.
    – psubsee2003
    Commented Jan 23, 2014 at 19:28
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    Good catch! I hope that when users get to 50 rep, they get a notification telling them that they can now flag questions as duplicates. Otherwise, if a user looked at the flag options while between 15 and 50 rep (like I did), and they don't have any reason to flag questions with the other options, they might go on a long time having the ability to flag as duplicate but not knowing it. Getting a notification that says they can now comment everywhere probably won't convey this to them.
    – Cerran
    Commented Jan 23, 2014 at 21:36
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    @psubsee2003 That's been done
    – Laura StaffMod
    Commented Jan 24, 2014 at 21:01

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