Should questions be marked as duplicates when the duplicate content is buried in an edit?

Question

I wrote a feature-request regarding adding in a badge icon for the top bar achievements popout. However, as I finished it up, I realized it was a duplicate.

Specifically, it was a duplicate of this question: Indicate the type/colour of badge awarded in the top bar achievements dropdown

This question was unfortunately marked as a duplicate as the result of an edit to an answer to a completely different question from 2011. As a result, it received only 21 views (but had 8 upvotes, that is to say one in every 3 people who viewed it upvoted!), was marked as closed, and was easily swept under the rug. Moreover, any future questions asked will be closed as a duplicate of it. It has no answers.

The linked question asks a completely different question: Badge notifications should have the same color as the badge

Further, this question suffers from an anti pattern on SE. It is continuously being edited to change its context. Whereas it was originally referring to an ajax message, now it is somehow relevant to whatever the accepted answer gets edited into.

At the bottom of the accepted answer, there is an implied feature-request for the same thing as the feature-request I was asking for (and the closed question as well). It was edited in in December 2013, even though the question was asked in 2011. Now no attention was given to a legitimate request and instead is buried in an edit that no one will see.

The official statement on closure reads

"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."

Some popular responses to closing meta duplicates in general on were

"Questions can be closed as duplicates if reading the duplicate would have answered the user's question" - Using duplicates as answers on Meta?

"If you ask a question similar to another question and it is likely to get the exact same answer, you have yourself a duplicate question." - When is a duplicate question not a duplicate?

Is this really a scenario where a question should be marked as a duplicate?

If yes, how is the request outlined above supposed to get any attention? If no, should the question be reopened?

Answer 1

I don't really understand why that old-as-the-hills question about a long obsolete feature keeps getting updated. Yes, the general idea behind the feature is still the same, but:

• If they really wanted to update the feature request, they should have updated the question. it's confusing to have a bunch of screenshots of an old feature that no longer exists, then more screenshots of another old feature that no longer exists, before finally getting to a screenshot of the current feature.

• In this case, the voting could be different significantly from feature to feature. Personally, I downvoted the question originally. I thought that different colored notifications in the original system would be flat-out annoying. I also downvoted the request for the second notification system, because I thought it would cause too much clutter.

  However, in the current system for notifying of badges, there's already an empty space there where it is perfectly possible to put a small dot indicating the color of the badge, so the evolution of the feature has caused me to change my mind. The arguments for and against the feature have completely changed, and they shouldn't be buried under arguments for/against two other, different feature requests.

Therefore, I'm just going to close this old feature request as obsolete. It's not really useful to the community anymore since the feature is now twice-removed. The focus should be placed on the current feature and its subsequent request.