Discussions should not be marked as duplicate [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Aggressively closing duplicate questions

I suppose the way most people get on meta is, that they notice something on StackOverflow that ticks them off. Then they want to vent their anger somewhere, and meta is the obvious place.

For example you see five veteran stackoverflowers close a newbie question because it's subjective. Then you log on to meta.stackoverflow, and post the following;

WE SHOULD BE MORE FRIENDLY TO NEWBIES
GREETINGS 
METANEWBIE

What you're really after is crossing your debating skills with some other people, so you can see where you stand, whether other people agree, and just to vent some anger. However, the answer you get is:

CLOSED AS DUPLICATE
WE DISCUSSED THIS DURING THE 2005 BETA
FIVE GRUMPY META DEVELOPERS

This leaves you with the option of appending a 2005 post, which nobody will read. That's just a waste.

I think discussions can't be duplicated, because a 2005 discussion is really different from a 2009 discussion. Questions that have the "discussion" tag should not be closed as duplicate,

P.S. It would be pretty ironic if someone found a duplicate for this :)

Answer 1

If this is an issue for you, then you don't understand the site. This site is not a discussion forum, it is meant to be a wiki Q&A site. You should be interested in adding to the wiki, not getting more views.

Furthermore, by interacting with the old question, the question will start to appear again on the front page for at least a short period of time.

Answer 2

I'm going to post here to represent one of the five grumpy meta people.

<Insert Grumpy Comment here>

Answer 3

In your extreme example of the same discussion topic being posted twice in four years, I would agree. However, the reality is that the same discussion topics get posted on a weekly (or shorter) basis. In that light, I'm going to keep closing duplicates. It's more useful to keep related discussion together on a single post.

Answer 4

The problem with duplicate discussions is that the old-timers (you know - those of us who have been here for several months now) eventually get tired of discussing the same things over and over and over and over and over ^{_{and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and...}}

...and we just give it up. The new discussion becomes an echo chamber for people new to the site, and nothing good comes of it. If you can find the original discussion, take time to read it, and either respond to it (bumping the whole question to the front page in the process) or start a new discussion that derives from but does not duplicate the original, then we're all better off: you, because you've taken the time to learn from past arguments; us, because we don't have to endlessly repeat old arguments.

Answer 5

Meta is a bit different from SO, in that it actually does encourage the concept of discussion. However, in my mind, that key change does not change the core tenet of any of the Trilogy sites:

Always search for dupes before you post.

Yes, you might find an older post to which you should be appending. Sorry, them's the breaks. However, by doing so, you "bump" said post to the "Active" questions tab on the home page, and the original asker of said post gets a big bar notification next time he/she signs in.

I'm not really seeing the problem. The reality is that most discussions are suggestions -- and in the case dupes, suggestions whose outcomes have already been decided, if not by consensus then possibly by mods or Jeff.