Why does marking someone's question as duplicate incite such rage or hurt feelings?

Question

Anyone who's spent much time on Meta has seen them: the frustrated rants from inexperienced users yelling about how The High-Rep Cabal closed their question out of Sheer Soup-Nazi Spite or Malign And Calculated Self-Interest, and how horrible we all are for allowing such a Heinous Evil to go unchecked. (Here's the most recent one.)

But… why? Getting upset about downvotes I totally get: someone took time to dislike something I wrote that left me vulnerable when I asked for help with it. But with duplicates, it seems more like "Oh, yeah, that sounds familiar, try over here." This impression should be strengthened by the wording chosen for the banners. Why doesn't that seem to soften the blow?

I have a couple of hypotheses, but I'm not terribly confident of any of them:

• Injured pride at being judged inadequate at searching

  This seems plausible enough. The implied "you could have found this yourself if you'd tried harder" might sting, and might sting some personalities more than others.

• Frustrated sloth at being denied a custom answer to this question with all the quirks of variable names, problem roomies, and arcane rulesets handled by the answerer rather than by adapting an existing answer

  I can easily imagine this annoying someone. Not sure it would produce the insulted rage, however.

Can anyone weigh in with more authority, either from analysis of Their Own Dark Heart upon getting a question closed, or from general knowledge of human nature?

Answer 1

I've read a lot of complaints about duplicate closures in other places like Hacker News where SO was discussed. It's often one of the top complaints about SO, second to only the complaints about closing "subjective" questions.

The major common feature in those complaints was that the duplicate was not an exact duplicate, so it didn't solve their question. Getting your question closed as a duplicate, when that duplicate doesn't solve your problem understandably feels like a very hostile action.

I can't distinguish how many of the complaints about bad duplicate closures are actual bad closures, and how many are a perceived issue. The asker might miss that the duplicate actually contains a solution, especially if the duplicate is a more generalized version of the problem.

My own hypothesis is that we have a non-negligible number of wrong duplicate closures, and that the simple scale of closing means that even if it's only a few percent of closures that are wrong, that's enough to seriously piss off a large number of people. Users without a lot of experience on SE sites also are unlikely to know how to get their question reopened, they'll perceive it as someone simply smashing the door in their face, and shutting down their question because they didn't read it right.

Answer 2

My 2 cents: most users are relatively new to the Stack Exchange network. They have experience with social media where content is reposted like there's no tomorrow; and they probably know about a discussion forum or two. The concept of 'duplicates' doesn't apply there, and they might feel that they've done something wrong and have been 'caught'. (I remember that feeling from when I posted a link-only answer and got the appropriate canned comment.)

Another Stack Exchange concept that's hard to grasp is the fact that we're providing answers mainly for future visitors, not for the authors themselves. Many people think we're some kind of support desk where you get a (maybe templated) response to every problem you bring. Closing a question denies the possibility of giving a response (answers) and can upset people, just like a closed support desk would.

This impression should be strengthened by the wording chosen for the banners.

Well, the first banner says "This question already has an answer here:" which is fine. The second one, below the question, still says "marked as duplicate".

then they go read the other question and see that the question is not exactly the same (despite the fact that the answer does answer their question)

_{(from n8te's comment)}

This, too. From the author's point of view, they have to read an extra question, which is slightly different or in some cases only related, and then have to adapt the answer(s) there to their specific question, which in some cases can be a lot more work than just getting a spoon-fed answer (your second hypothesis). Don't get me wrong, I think that in most cases (like the linked example), closing as a duplicate is fine. But from an individual's point of view, I can imagine that getting your question closed as a duplicate can be frustrating (though nowhere near the point of getting enraged).

Answer 3

(Disclaimer: I think the answers to this question are somewhat site-specific, and I'm not a big SO user; these points may not be relevant to SO).

I think one reason is that we're sometimes not that nice about it. Between the (at best neutral) wording you get on the screen, and what might be some rather barbed comments from other users, the tone can be more "you fool, we already have this one" rather than "hey, great question - actually we already have an answer here!". Not always... just sometimes.

Another is that people do sometimes close questions as duplicates of questions that don't provide a good answer to the new question. It's obviously frustrating when you spend your time wording a question carefully and then some other anonymous soul negates all that effort. It's especially frustrating when you feel your question has been dupe-marked by people who perhaps seem to have been influenced by existing close votes, and aren't taking the time to understand your question - being misunderstood can be enraging.

Also, if your question has already been asked but doesn't have good answers, there's no good way to attract better answers. Bounties don't really seem to create much interest on a lot of sites, and if you're a new user, you won't have the rep to place anyway.

Another problem is the fact that on many sites, closing a question can happen more easily than getting it reopened; The 'High-Rep Cabal' can genuinely be a little defensive on some sites, in my experience.

Answer 4

I think there are a few different reasons - It's one of those things that's less than obvious. You're new, you're here for help, and your entirely on-topic question gets closed as a duplicate - sometimes even before you get an answer.

Contrast this with many new users who post multiple identical answers rather than flagging to close. Duplicates are not something a new user will get easily.

I've personally joked about how the duplicate suggestions in the title work better - so there's less of an excuse, but it's still something less than obvious to a new user. While search does suck, the most obvious dupes are obvious - and if it's the same problem with different wording, it helps searchability.

I've often chosen to suggest differentiating a question from the duplicate target. I guess its balancing the immediate payout of answer(s) and reputation for folks who have asked and answered there, and the broader goal of building a knowledge base.

There's no quick fix - literally people just have to get "this is how it works" or decide on a threshold of duplicity that as many people are happy with as possible.

Answer 5

Why does marking someone's question as duplicate incite such rage or hurt feelings?

I don't think it does, provided that a) it really is a duplicate and b) the answers on the duplicate really do answer the question.

Anyone who's spent much time on Meta has seen them: the frustrated rants from inexperienced users yelling about how The High-Rep Cabal closed their question out of Sheer Soup-Nazi Spite or Malign And Calculated Self-Interest, and how horrible we all are for allowing such a Heinous Evil to go unchecked. (Here's the most recent one.).

That's not a rant. The guy makes a good point. I thought it was rather ironic that his question was closed as a duplicate.

But… why? Getting upset about downvotes I totally get: someone took time to dislike something I wrote that left me vulnerable when I asked for help with it. But with duplicates, it seems more like "Oh, yeah, that sounds familiar, try over here." This impression should be strengthened by the wording chosen for the banners. Why doesn't that seem to soften the blow?

I think the problem comes when the person who flags the question as a duplicate is the person who has given an unsatisfactory answer on the alleged duplicate.

I have a couple of hypotheses, but I'm not terribly confident of any of them: Injured pride at being judged inadequate at searching. This seems plausible enough. The implied "you could have found this yourself if you'd tried harder" might sting, and might sting some personalities more than others.

I'd be interested to see if anybody really felt that. I suspect not.

Frustrated sloth at being denied a custom answer to this question with all the quirks of variable names, problem roomies, and arcane rulesets handled by the answerer rather than by adapting an existing answer

That doesn't sound likely either. But it does sound rather insulting. Rubbing salt in the wound, as it were.

I can easily imagine this annoying someone. Not sure it would produce the insulted rage, however. Can anyone weigh in with more authority, either from analysis of Their Own Dark Heart upon getting a question closed, or from general knowledge of human nature?

I think there are people who have answered a question, sometimes badly, who are motivated to close down a new question even if it's not much like the alleged duplicate. They know that people are more likely to upvote an answer that's already been upvoted, ie theirs. And that posters with a better answer are less likely to provide it on the duplicate.

The bottom line here is that Stack exchange has a system that can alienate new users, because the Stack Exchange "model" is idealistic - it doesn't work well when users are less than honest. Why an organisation lets this happen to its own detriment I do not know.

Answer 6

If someone posts a good question, other programmers group up around the question and collectively try to solve it. It's fun to search for the best answer with like minded people. Different groups of people can have fun answering the exact same question at different times.

A duplicate close says, "I've been here for many years and I'm not interested in basic questions like this". A veteran programmer would use this to close down conversations between newer programmers. At least where I live, that's very offensive: people are used to associate freely, and resent being dispersed. The veteran programmer should participate in questions he does find challenging instead of dissolving newbie groups.

In addition, I'm offended that people deprive new developers of the fun and learning experience that Stack Overflow used to be. It's like, we've had fun learning this in 2010, and we will prevent you from learning by closing the exact same question as a duplicate. It's like saying "our cool kid's club is full" and we don't welcome new programmers.

Joel on Software (one of the SO founders) blogged here: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2018/04/23/strange-and-maddening-rules/:

The old timers invented the concept of FAQs. They used them to say “please don’t ask things that have been asked before, ever, in the history of Usenet” which honestly meant that the only questions they really wanted to see were so bizarre and so esoteric that they were really enormously boring to 99% of working C programmers.

Duplicate closes are the new RTFM.