# What is this notification doing there?

Why is this huge ugly banner appear in possible duplicates? It looks horrible.

• This is one of the recent changes to the closing mechanics, it replaces the old duplicate banner. What exactly do you want to change here, if I remember correctly the major difference to the old banner is simply the font size.
– user9733
Feb 6 '13 at 14:18
• But it appeared before the question was closed.
– Asaf Karagila Mod
Feb 6 '13 at 14:23
• That behaviour was also changed and is rather controversial at the moment. The idea is to make it clearer to the asker that the answer he is looking for is likely in the duplicate, and that as early as possible. In practice, showing this already after the first close vote might be rather problematic.
– user9733
Feb 6 '13 at 14:26
• Ah. I see. Well, if anything then my post can be used as a public service announcement that this new feature exists, and is controversial.
– Asaf Karagila Mod
Feb 6 '13 at 14:31
• Also seen (and commented upon) here. The banner appeared after just one vote to close. Never mind that the other thread does not provide what the asker is looking for.
– user53153
Feb 6 '13 at 14:40
• Hm, this seems to be again one of these rather harmful then helpful features (similar to those darn automated downvotes that come along with closing a question) that are always implemented globally without giving the moderators of the individual communities any possibility to disable them if they dont want them :-/. For the people who ask, some kind of a work around could be to state themself why other similar looking questions and their answers do not yet give them what they are looking for, to prevent an accumulation of unneeded close/downvotes because of the harmful banner... Feb 6 '13 at 19:50
• @Dilaton I never heard of "automated downvotes that come along with closing a question". What is your source for that?
– user53153
Feb 6 '13 at 20:16
• @5PM: When closing as Off Topic a downvote is automatically given.
– Asaf Karagila Mod
Feb 6 '13 at 20:23
• @5PM There were discussions on MSO to implement automatic downvotes for questions that get closed for the different reasons, for these two reasons I have definitely observed it happen on Physics.SE :-/. About the others discussed here for example I am not sure if it is really implemented. Dmckee once even apologized to an asker for them. If I observe it and thinkd that the automatic downvote is very unneeded and inappropriate, I sometimes counteract it by an upvote ... :-) Feb 6 '13 at 20:25
• It seems that the text under a closed question was changed as well. "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." <-- If I were the recipient of this message, I'd be confused. "It tells me to ask a new question? But that's what I just did. Okay, I'll try again since this is what I'm told to do." -- and another duplicate is forthcoming.
– user53153
Feb 6 '13 at 23:40

And we already have an example of how this feature is harmful.

I'm not sure if the banner contributed to the question getting four erroneous votes to close. It may have. But already the fact that the OP was confused by the message and felt obliged to apologize is a demonstration of the poor service that this feature renders to the askers.

• And here is the link to the question, which unfortunately has been closed. See a comment by Marvis here.
– user53153
Feb 6 '13 at 20:53
• It seems that there no longer is an indication what post the duplicate is supposed to be: screengrab. One has to look at the "linked" tab to find it. Not sure whether this is a good idea. Feb 6 '13 at 21:21
• @Martin Oh yes. As soon as a reopen vote is cast, the notification disappears. Dumb$^2$.
– user53153
Feb 6 '13 at 21:27
• @5PM: It tends to prevent further reopen votes, because there is then no way to form an opinion about whether it's really a duplicate or not. Some might consider that an advantage. Feb 6 '13 at 21:50
• @5PM That is actually a bug and has been fixed now
– user9733
Feb 6 '13 at 22:05