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I just want to highlight something about duplicate questions. I think that duplicate questions such as this one should be closed, but not deleted. The reason is this: someone who doesn't know the answer probably wouldn't know that they're both the same question. When I say someone who doesn't know the answer, remember that I am not speaking about the asker, but someone else reading the question who also wants to know the answer.

That being said, I think that there can be two (or more) different ways to ask the same question. Closing it as a duplicate is a great solution to this because not only will there be a link to the original question for the reader, but the reader may also learn something new simply from learning that the two questions address the same issue. Therefore the fact that it was closed as a duplicate in and of itself can be learned from. Any thoughts or disagreements?

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  • As @Troyen said: what you describe is already the official policy. There was no plan to delete your question. Is there anything that would let you think otherwise?
    – Dave
    Commented Aug 7, 2012 at 17:59
  • 1
    It got one vote for deletion.
    – rurouniwallace
    Commented Aug 7, 2012 at 18:28

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Your stance matches the general consensus on the Stack Exchange network and the intent of the Stack Exchange founders.

Generally, questions that are closed as a duplicate are the only type of closed questions that are left around for precisely that reason - someone else might have the same question, but be looking for it with different search terms. As long as the duplicate question is a good question (well-written), it should stick around.

Note also that questions with a score above zero are exempt from the automatic deletion script.

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