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The first one is about "encouraging" people to leave comments on downvotes and is marked as . The second one is about "mandatory" comments on downvotes and is speaking of a feature which does not exist.

I think the first question has a purpose and fulfilled it. But the second one has got another purpose which is not yet fulfilled.

What do you think about this duplicate closure?

Put in the clothes of the guy who sees its answer closed for duplication. He checks and sees that the "duplicate" question was speaking of "suggesting" while he was speaking of "mandatory". It would be better to close the question for the real reason: "community has had that discussion, in depth, came to a conclusion, did that several times, and has settled on a definitive conclusion."

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  • 8
    It's definitely a duplicate of something else, if not that one. People have been demanding mandatory comments for downvotes for ages.
    – Wooble
    Commented Feb 5, 2014 at 16:59
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    Take your pick: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/106818/… , meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2263/… (deleted), meta.stackexchange.com/questions/31302/… , meta.stackexchange.com/questions/55324/downvoters-and-comments , and on and on. The linked question is merely the canonical duplicate we've decided to direct all of these towards.
    – Brad Larson Mod
    Commented Feb 5, 2014 at 17:32
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    Ok.. you are right. But it's not a duplicate of that question. Try this search: meta.stackoverflow.com/search?q=mandatory+downvote+comment in which question should I write? They are all marked as duplicate... How an user can / should ask to make comments mandatory for downvoting?
    – Revious
    Commented Feb 5, 2014 at 17:33
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    @BradLarson: it was really good to direct all towards, but now that "encouraging" users is completed, you could close the first discussion and create another discussion for make it mandatory. Since "encouraging" and "mandatory" are not exactly the same.. I think. If you want I can better explain my point of view. I would like to discourage people who fastly downvote without even reading the question.
    – Revious
    Commented Feb 5, 2014 at 17:35
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    I don't think that they are duplicates, and that is one of the many many many instances of marking a question as a duplicate incorrectly on meta
    – Sam I am says Reinstate Monica
    Commented Feb 5, 2014 at 17:36
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    @SamIam: you are right. The mathematical logic is very clear and simple. In no way you could consider that question as duplicate since "mandatory" and "encouraging" has a strong difference in their meaning. I would also disincentivate this kind of downvoting.
    – Revious
    Commented Feb 5, 2014 at 17:39
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    @Sam Sounds like you aren't looking past the titles of the two questions to actually read them. The titles indicate that they're different, but when actually reading the questions you can see that the answers (and comments) to the dup target very much address the proposal it is marked as a duplicate of, as is indicated in the comments of the duplicate question.
    – Servy
    Commented Feb 5, 2014 at 17:41
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    Fair enough question by the way. I can see how on the face of it this is confusing. And duplicate closure on Meta is arguably somewhat different than on the main site.
    – Bart
    Commented Feb 5, 2014 at 17:58
  • related: Does the new guidance on duplicate questions suggest closing a question as duplicate, if the original answers the OP's question?
    – gnat
    Commented Feb 5, 2014 at 18:29

1 Answer 1

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On the face of it, the duplicate is indeed incorrect. Encouraging people and making something mandatory are different things. However, part of the accepted answer on the encouragement post is

After the first downvote, we can't say we didn't remind them, and honestly that's as good as it gets. Forcing a comment will end in even worse results.

Not only does that come from one of the site's founders, but it's also community consensus by now. Whenever this issue is brought up again, the answer simply is "not gonna happen" (sometimes with the additional "sigh, not this again"). The encouragement will be as good as it gets.

So in actual fact while the titles might not give that impression, the duplicate is as canonical as it gets.

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    I've upvoted and marked your answer as accepted, but I also want to incourage you to think about this phrase: "Whenever this issue is brought up again, the answer simply is "not gonna happen" (sometimes with the additional "sigh, not this again")". Usually when you experiment one problem one, two, three and many other times it's not always because every people is not careful. But often because there is an error which forces people in that direction. Why do you think people are asking for mandatory comments? The other problem is maybe with the title of the 1st discussion...
    – Revious
    Commented Feb 5, 2014 at 18:15
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    @Sam Please read through the dozens of discussions on that very topic. This is not the community being blindly dismissive. This is the response of a community which has had that discussion, in depth, came to a conclusion, did that several times, and has settled on a definitive conclusion. In contrast, most if not all of those duplicates don't show they have taken notice of this, and don't bring anything new to the discussion. If a user is able to do that, and finds a new angle that has not yet been discussed, he's free to ask the question.
    – Bart
    Commented Feb 5, 2014 at 18:20
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    @Sam Given that I started out the dup vote on that one "possible duplicate of Encouraging people to explain downvotes or must comment while downvoting (and many others)." Note that each vote can only cast one dup. Maybe Must comment while downvoting would have been a better initial target, but there are so many to chose from. Please note also my other comment to that question: "-1 lack of research"
    – user213963
    Commented Feb 5, 2014 at 18:29
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    @Sam Another option would be to go to the linked question from the dup to get an idea about the difficulty of choosing one dup target.
    – user213963
    Commented Feb 5, 2014 at 18:30
  • @Bart: there is just one problem that I see... put in the clothes of the guy who sees its answer closed for duplication. He checks and sees that the "duplicate" question was speaking of "suggesting" while he was speaking of "mandatory". It would be better to close the question for the real reason: "community has had that discussion, in depth, came to a conclusion, did that several times, and has settled on a definitive conclusion."
    – Revious
    Commented Feb 5, 2014 at 19:32
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    If you close something because it has been discussed over and over again, you better close it as something that's proof of that. The canonical dupe achieves just that.
    – Bart
    Commented Feb 5, 2014 at 19:42
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    @MichaelT: yes, but you were the only one who explained his downvote. I'd like to try to express the problem that I see. People are emotive. They are often in a hurry. The deep reason which moves human being are not rational. Being rational requires an effort. Do you agree on that? I guess you are. The problem begin when human (that are emotive for their nature) easily downvotes questions without a strong reason. I think that it would be good to identify which mechanism lead to a downvoting "trend". But the question is longer.. I will try to open a question to better explain what I mean..
    – Revious
    Commented Feb 5, 2014 at 19:43
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    @Bart: thanks for the explanation, but I don't agree completely. After your explaination the canonical answer is ok. But without your explanation every user will read "duplicate" not as a synonim of "similar topic already faced" but as thefreedictionary.com/duplicate and you can taste it in the number of people who complain and protest. The phenomenon is really tangible
    – Revious
    Commented Feb 5, 2014 at 19:48
  • Only sometimes?
    – Aaron Bertrand Staff
    Commented Feb 5, 2014 at 20:33

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