41

The new closed-as-duplicate banner says:

This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.

I think it should instead say

This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If answers there do not fully address your question, please ask a different question or seek further answers to the pre-existing one.

— to discourage re-re-asking the same question. (I also changed "those answers", which has no plural antecedent, to "answers there", which doesn't need one.)

As of September 19, 2013, the original text quoted above has returned here.

Improve this question
2

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
27

This already happens for the OP.

The original poster already sees what you want, because as you point out, we generally want them to edit: enter image description here

Other users see the "ask a new question" link without the "edit" one because they're mostly arriving via search. Even if they happened to have enough rep to edit, it's more likely that they have a different problem than the one they landed one than that they have the knowledge needed to clarify what the OP of the dupe actually meant.

Improve this answer
6
  • 9
    I'm not sure what confuses me more, that the image looks like it is at a tilt as if you used a scanner on your monitor to get the image, or that Shog's diamond is umpteen times bigger than it should be.
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Commented Feb 12, 2013 at 15:41
  • @GraceNote, a scanner? How would I even hold it up to the screen? Tracing paper is a Much more effective method. (Plus, then you can make the pretty shapes as big as you want!)
    – Jaydles
    Commented Feb 12, 2013 at 15:47
  • @GraceNote All diamonds in those post notices appear that way on MSO (at least for me). It makes me a sad panda. :(
    – Laura
    Commented Feb 12, 2013 at 16:35
  • 3
    Since I just happened to run into problems with this myself – why are we even telling the users to ask a new question instead of editing their posts? Doesn't this also encourage repetition?
    – slhck
    Commented Apr 2, 2013 at 12:58
  • 2
    Perhaps instead of removing "edit this question..." for everyone but the OP, change it to something like "the owner needs to edit this question...", without the edit link? Its likely that many users have already seen the non-OP version of the closed-as-duplicate message, and don't realize their own closed-as-duplicate message is different. Also based on the speed in which @slhck's post gained upvotes, it's misleading to regular users who have't ever had one of their questions closed-as-duplicate so have not seen the OP version of the message
    – Rachel
    Commented Apr 2, 2013 at 13:06
  • 1
    @Grace it's not a big secret that Shog got the biggest diamond. :D
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Dec 14, 2014 at 9:21
22

I would prefer:

This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please revise your question to make it clearly different from the one identified as a duplicate, and flag for re-opening.

With a handy link to how to flag, and possibly how closing isn't fatal.

Improve this answer
3
  • 2
    Yeah, even better. (But "answers there", not "those answers", for the reason mentioned in the question.) +1.
    – msh210
    Commented Feb 6, 2013 at 23:39
  • 5
    No need to flag for reopening any more, since it goes into the review queue automatically when they edit.
    – David Fullerton
    Commented Feb 12, 2013 at 16:05
  • 2
    That's IMO the best response. Saying in the banner "ask a new question" just invites an endless loop, because what should the OP ask, if the question was closed and the duplicates don't solve his problem. Either he doesn't unterstand that the answers indeed are THE answer, or the closers don't understand the difference. In either case, he can reprhase the question, but essentialy it would result in basically getting the same question asked again and most probably getting closed again as a duplicate.
    – Devolus
    Commented Jan 8, 2014 at 13:41

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .