I often find pages which are marked as duplicate in a block just below the question, and it looks something like this:
marked as duplicate by ..., ..., ... Jan 31 '17 at 23:59
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.
Why are there no links in the marked as duplicate block pointing to those duplicate questions? (F:A)
(or a single link helping you point to those questions, see below)
It is quite frustrating that you have to think of similar questions (or try to rephrase your question) yourself and then look them up, if it could also supply those apparently known duplicate links.
When a user marks a question as duplicate, then I guess that user knows about the duplicate question in question (no pun intended) and might as well supply a link to that other question with little effort, so other users don't have to get creative to find it. (F:A)
(Sorry, the question grew very long. Please focus on above first before reading further)
As I am writing this I notice that when asking a new question (the window I am currently in) there are already functionalities showing similar questions as the one I am typing:
- "Questions that may already have your answer" (F:E)
a block with links to existing questions just below your new question title. - "Similar Questions" (F:F)
a pop-up block with links to existing questions in the sidebar.
(only visible when your input focus is in the question-description-textarea)
Perhaps an alternative or additional feature could be to put general links in that "Marked as duplicate"-block, which give the same functionality (generated links) as I see here in the ask a new question window:
- "See other questions that may have your answer" (F:B)
- "See Similar questions" (F:C)
Come to think of it, those general links might also be useful for questions which aren't yet marked as duplicate.
There is already a sidebar "Related" (F:G) which seems to show links which also could be interpreted as "Similar Questions".
If the links below "Related" are generated in the same way perhaps the title might be rephrased to "Related, similar or possible duplicate questions", so you know where to look. And put a "See Related" (F:D) #anchor link in the "Marked as duplicate" block which helps focus your attention on that Related block.
If the "Related" questions are generated differently then it might help to add a new block with "Similar (or possible duplicate) questions".
To make replies to this question a bit more managable let's mark mentioned features for easier reference:
- Feature (F:A) : (new) when marking as duplicate, supply a link to the duplicate, and show that in de "Marked as duplicate box.
- Feature (F:B) : (new) a general "See other questions that may have your answer" link.
- Feature (F:C) : (new) a general "See Similar questions" link.
- Feature (F:D) : (new) a "see Related" link.
- Feature (F:E) : (existing) the "Questions that may already have your answer" list of links as seen on the asking a new question page.
- Feature (F:F) : (existing) the "Similar Questions" sidebar list of links as seen on the asking a new question page.
- Feature (F:G) : (existing) the "Related" sidebar list of links as seen on an existing question page.
Meta-meta:
Sorry for the wall of text, I was thinking about how to split this up but couldn't figure out how without losing cohesion on how all these things relate to eachother.
Wanted to add tag "question-linking" but not allowed to add new tags yet.
Ofcourse... only after typing all this I find duplicate questions to mine:
(only showed up on the next page for my search for questions...)
- Question marked as duplicates should have links to the duplicates
I Still feel my question covers more than the "duplicate question" mentioned above, so I thought it might be better to start this new question as a seperate question "thread" to cover all new mentioned options.
