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On duplicate questions, I often see different headings for the duplicate question list. These include:

Possible Duplicate:
[duplicate question list]

and

This question already has an answer here:
[duplicate question list]

and more recently,

This question is an exact duplicate of:
[duplicate question list]

What decides which heading is placed before the duplicate question list?

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    What else is weird, though, is that for the first one, the Community user appears to insert the duplicate link, whereas for the other two, it seems to happen automatically, without any user (including Community) doing anything.
    – user215114
    Commented Sep 18, 2013 at 20:26
  • When the Community User is involved, it usually means that the closure came from one of the review queues, where multiple people had to approve it.
    – user102937
    Commented Sep 18, 2013 at 20:28

1 Answer 1

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Possible Duplicate:
[list]

Appears on old questions that were marked as duplicates before the new closing overhaul. These notices were edited directly into the question by the Community user and could be freely edited and even removed. This has since been replaced, but questions that previously had it were not updated.

This question already has an answer here:
[list]

The new default message that is shown to everyone when a question gets closed as a duplicate. It is an automatic box that is displayed and can only be edited by gold tag badge holders or moderators via a special edit link at the right.

This question may already have an answer here:
[list]

That solved my problem! No, my question is different. I will edit to explain how.

This message is shown to the author of the question only when it has a pending close-as-duplicate vote or flag on it, until the question either gets closed or the duplicate vote or flag expires.

This question is an exact duplicate of:
[list]

Looks like this is a special case for when you close as a duplicate of another question that doesn't have any upvoted answers.

On normal sites, normal users can only vote to close as a duplicate if the other question has an upvoted or accepted answer (moderators can bypass this). On meta sites, however, any question can be closed as a duplicate of another question, no matter if it has answers or not. So naturally you'll see this possibility a lot more on a meta site than on a main site.

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  • 2
    Worth to mention I suggested a way to fix the "but questions that previously had it were not updated" part.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Sep 18, 2013 at 22:15
  • @ShaWiz It should be possible to do that silently. I thought Community's edit to insert the duplicate text was modified to not bump the question, but I may be misremembering things.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Sep 19, 2013 at 1:07
  • @animuson when question is reopened (no matter how) it's bumped but not showing what or who bumped, only looking in the revisions would reveal it.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Sep 19, 2013 at 6:06
  • @ShaWizDowArd Yes, but if it's possible to silence a revision then it should be even easier to silence a reopen. Although, I'm not really sure it would need to be reopened. Why not just edit out the old notice and change the settings for that question to what they need to be for the new duplicate method? Or possibly even destroy the revision that edited the notice into the question, but that sounds like it'd probably be more complicated.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Sep 19, 2013 at 6:08
  • @animuson I believe a dev can make script that will do this, maybe even in the low level... but of course maybe it's not so trivial.
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Sep 19, 2013 at 15:59
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    @animuson Are you sure about "close as a duplicate of another question that doesn't have any upvoted answers."? It seems that the exact duplicate banner is for when the post that is closed has no upvoted answers.
    – hichris123
    Commented Jun 3, 2016 at 13:29
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    The exact duplicate reason is also for when a question is closed as a duplicate of a question that same user asked previously.
    – TheWanderer
    Commented Jan 12, 2019 at 1:48

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