1

When a question is closed as a duplicate, it appears that the choices for the duplicate question links are presented in one of three orders1:

  1. Most answers
  2. First duplicate chosen
  3. Undefined

Any of these are not ideal, as when someone fat fingers a duplicate target, it ends up in the header of the question. Normally this would not be bothersome, except when the fat fingered target was first or had the most answers (I don't know and could not find the sort order in my search of related questions).

I seriously hope no more than one person selected this duplicate

Instead, I propose that the links to the duplicate questions be ordered based on:

  1. Number of users who selected a given duplicate
  2. Number of answers for the given duplicate
  3. (optional) Total question score of the given duplicate

This order is better2 as it would minimize the pain cause by fat fingers, and maximize the position of "more selected" duplicates (assuming of course that a majority of close votes were not the result of fat fingers).

1. This is a guess.
2. For some definition of better.

Improve this question
2
  • Does order actually matter? There can be at most five. That's not a lot of clicking for answer-seekers to have to do.
    – Anthony Pegram
    Jun 14, 2013 at 19:16
  • @user414076: if four folks chose one dupe target and one person chose the other, it would make sense to provide the more popular target first. Duplicate targets are supposed to be useful, so providing a helpful order for answer-seekers...well it is helpful.
    – user7116
    Jun 14, 2013 at 19:19

0

Reset to default

You must log in to answer this question.

Browse other questions tagged .