When a question gets a single vote-to-close identifying a possible duplicate, a large banner appears only to the asker of the question saying that the question has already been asked and may have an answer. A number of things might then happen:
- the asker might also vote to close as a duplicate (oddly, this appears to be nonbinding)
- the asker might vehemently disagree, add comments, edit the question, and generally try to prevent closure of the question
- the asker might read the other question, and possibly upvote it, or one or more of its answers
- the asker might or might not interact with (vote, comment, edit) their own question or its answers again
Is it possible (using the data dump or as a developer) to put any numbers to these possibilities? I have a theory that for some users, the very first close vote is enough to send them to the other question, where they solve their underlying problem (they get their code working) and they never interact with the question they asked again. If this theory is true, the original question should somehow be closeable faster: perhaps by letting the asker cast a binding vote, perhaps some other mechanism.
On the other hand if this is not true, and most askers dispute the suggestion of duplicate, or continue to interact with their own question and its answers right up to the point of closure and beyond, then why do we have the asker-only banner rather than just a comment?
So, who can provide some numbers for reactions to that first duplicate vote?