Questions tagged [exact-duplicates]
This tag is referring to the process of identifying and closing questions that are (abstract) duplicates of another question.
265
questions
115
votes
7
answers
16k
views
Enforcement of Quality Standards
Math SE has a long-standing policy regarding what constitutes a Good Question. The policy is intended to ensure that the collection of questions and answers here is of high quality, is searchable, ...
- 30.4k
92
votes
9
answers
12k
views
Coping with abstract duplicate questions.
Any longtime reader cannot help but notice that we get many abstract duplicate questions, e.g. this recent question on partial fraction computation, which is not essentially different from many other ...
- 276k
40
votes
0
answers
571
views
Encouraging duplicate hunters
There are more and more duplicates on this site, but sometimes it is time consuming to find an earlier source. Now, there is a variety of moderation badges for editing, voting, reviewing, raising ...
- 41.4k
37
votes
3
answers
1k
views
Large number of posts in the spirit of "How do I become good at Mathematics?"
There have been a steady number of questions being asked in the spirit of:
Hi, I'm yada yada. Here's a short version of my life story and why I can't math. I currently only understand such and ...
- 80.4k
33
votes
2
answers
2k
views
Can we have "2021: a year of EoQS"?
In Paramanand's questionnaire response, he suggests that the effects of the EoQS should be studied. This made me realise that I don't really know anything past the "theory" of the EoQS since ...
- 35.4k
33
votes
0
answers
353
views
Improving the search system
When recognizing some questions as duplicates, sometimes it is difficult to find the original question one remembers. For instance, I recently saw a question asking to prove that
$$\forall x\in(-1,1),\...
- 356k
31
votes
4
answers
502
views
Voting to close as duplicate without taking the time to check if they are
This question has 4 votes to close as being an exact duplicate of this one. Within an hour of the question being asked, someone voted to close it as an exact duplicate AND Davide Giraudo pointed out, ...
- 11.3k
31
votes
1
answer
688
views
How exactly are we incentivized to post links to duplicates?
So yesterday I came across a question (we'll call it Question $1$) which I found interesting, and after having spent a little time thinking about it without result, I started searching MSE for some ...
- 46.9k
31
votes
1
answer
689
views
Is it acceptable to post a "better" version of an existing question?
Situation: Lets say there was an interesting question, but:
It was poorly written (e.g. language, formatting, missing assumptions).
It was posted many day ago but got only a few views.
It received ...
- 30.3k
29
votes
1
answer
535
views
Allow closing as duplicate for new questions
One of the changes to the closure system in the recent revamp was that to close something as a duplicate, the suggested duplicate needs to have an upvoted answer.
I suppose that's a good thing when ...
- 399k
28
votes
5
answers
817
views
What if the duplicate has a better answer than the original?
I have recently asked a question (The original did not turn up in my search): Show that there are infinitely many powers of two starting with the digit 7
which was marked as a duplicate of: Starting ...
user424290
28
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Why do high rep, long time users answer duplicate or too similar questions on book recommendations?
Way too many duplicates to Selecting the Real Analysis Textbooks, Recommend a statistics fundamentals book, What is the best book to learn probability?! I feel that too many book recommendations ...
user851668
28
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Same person has asked the same question 6 (!) times - what can be done?
I have flagged 4 exact duplicates yesterday
https://math.stackexchange.com/users/flag-summary/86800
leaving only one version
Integers and integer functions
And today a yet another exact duplicate ...
- 1,277
27
votes
3
answers
1k
views
Should duplicate questions be deleted?
Lately, I came across several suggestions for deletion of questions simply because they are duplicates. In my opinion:
If the question is somehow a bad question, then it ought to be deleted, and so ...
- 433k
27
votes
1
answer
345
views
Is it ok to edit questions that are closed as duplicates?
I think that duplicates can be useful for various reasons. In particular, they might help to find a question if a user searches for different keywords. Similarly, they might appear in autogenerated ...
- 54.6k
27
votes
1
answer
729
views
Why do obvious duplicate questions on MSE get upvoted, answered, and their answers upvoted?
The title is the question: why do obvious duplicate questions on MSE get upvoted, answered, and their answers upvoted? And what can be done to prevent this? Here is an example: https://math....
- 8,232
26
votes
1
answer
534
views
Whither the duplicate?
Ironically, I'll bet this question is a duplicate of other questions regarding duplicates, but I see little harm in sparking some new conversation here, even if we tread over old ground that many ...
- 139k
24
votes
2
answers
812
views
How do you search for duplicates?
Sometimes I am really surprised how fast are the duplicates of new question found, given that we have vast amount of questions here.
I hope posting this question here can be useful and can lead to ...
- 54.6k
24
votes
2
answers
431
views
A hierarchy of duplicates - which questions generalise other questions?
I think the site would benefit from a hierarchical structure to the duplicate question functionality, indicating which questions generalise others.
I was contemplating duplicate questions last night ...
- 9,349
24
votes
0
answers
1k
views
Help me find an original for questions like "Why $(-1)^{ab} \ne [(-1)^a]^b$ when $a, b, \in \Bbb R$?"
There are many questions that boil down to
"why is it not true that $(-1)^{ab} = [(-1)^a]^b$ (or $z^{ab} = (z^a)^b$) for $z \in \Bbb C$ and $a, b \in \Bbb R$ (or $\Bbb C$)?"
and, respectively,
"...
- 35.5k
23
votes
0
answers
390
views
questions asked over 100 times
I just saw another question with the limit of $(1 + 1/n)^n.$
A few months ago, somebody asked some other multiple repeat question, I wrote to check any of the last 137 times it had been asked. he ...
- 141k
23
votes
2
answers
455
views
Should we close questions asking for hints as duplicates?
This question was inspired by this question Relationship between $\operatorname{ord}(ab), \operatorname{ord}(a)$, and $\operatorname{ord}(b)$, which I first came across while reviewing close votes.
...
- 19.1k
22
votes
1
answer
333
views
"marked as duplicate" by community?
A few minutes ago I flagged this question as a duplicate of an earlier one; when I came back to it, it showed as having been "marked as duplicate by Steven Stadnicki, Community". I've never seen the ...
- 52.5k
21
votes
2
answers
431
views
Vote to Close as Exact Duplicate should Accept MathOverflow Question URLs
It would be very helpful if we could vote to close questions as exact duplicates of questions on MO.
edit to consolidate some ideas fleshed out in the comments on Thomas Owens's answer:
Having the ...
- 36.7k
21
votes
1
answer
890
views
Question having excellent answer marked as dupe of a newer question
A high rep user who posted an answer to this question asked in 2014 marked my question asked in 2012 as duplicate.
As such there is nothing wrong with flagging older questions as dupes of newer ones ...
- 47.1k
21
votes
0
answers
475
views
Question closed as duplicate, but the linked question was deleted
This is related to Question closed as a duplicate, link points to question closed as a duplicate, but it is more problematic.
The question (Q) Prove that quotient topology $\mathbb{R}/\sim$ is the ...
- 79.9k
20
votes
15
answers
2k
views
The duplicate thread
This thread is intended to help with closure of duplicates. The main use case are situations where a first attempt at duplicate closure was not successful.1 The creation of this thread was decided ...
- 54.6k
20
votes
2
answers
495
views
Flagged duplicate "Does this answer your question?" text is misleading
Here's at least the second instance in which I have flagged a question as a duplicate, and the canned comment text "Does this answer your question?" elicits from the author of the duplicate question a ...
- 142k
20
votes
1
answer
307
views
How can I make sure the problem I want to ask has not been presented before?
e.g. I have a question on proving an inequality statement. If I google it Google will not recognize it and if I use Math StackExchange'search engine, it will not respond. Thank you for your help.
- 314
19
votes
1
answer
383
views
How to avoid duplications?
During the last two and a half years since I became a member of the SE community, it has happened so many times that my questions have been marked as duplicate, especially during the first few months ...
- 27k
19
votes
0
answers
411
views
Should duplicate PSQs be closed as duplicates?
Usually once or twice a day in the close queue, I find a question that is a PSQ (Problem Statement Question) and also a duplicate. Sometimes another reviewer explicitly links to the dupe, other times ...
- 8,057
19
votes
1
answer
349
views
Meta-Meta question: Duplicate for previous question without actual real answer
So I was perusing the meta site, and I came across this closed link: https://math.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/20285/why-do-we-have-a-tag-called-stochastic-analysis
The reason it was closed was ...
- 16.8k
18
votes
1
answer
1k
views
I voted mistakenly to close as duplicate. When I realised my mistake, my comment explaining why was deleted.
I refer to this question: Comparing logarithms with different bases.
Over-hastily, I flagged it as a possible duplicate of How to compare logarithms $\log_4 5$ and $\log_5 6$?.
I also thought it was ...
- 12.3k
18
votes
2
answers
662
views
This question is an exact duplicate of: Page Not Found
I stumbled upon this question which was marked as a duplicate, and rightly so as the OP had realised himself in their comment.
Checking out the question that it's an exact duplicate of leads to this.
...
- 3,930
18
votes
2
answers
569
views
Should we have a canonical question on transitive / symmetric / reflexive relations?
It seems that we fairly regularly get elementary questions of the form:
"Does a relation that is [A] and [B] have to be [C]?"
where [A], [B] and [C] are some permutation of "...
- 26.4k
18
votes
1
answer
707
views
Why I seemingly cannot find my question when searching but then later when I get flagged for duplicate question I find the similar question
I try to avoid creating duplicates but I always fail.
Consider my recent question.
I was searching the finite subgroup criterion.
So I typed into the search function
"Finite subgroup criterion&...
17
votes
5
answers
1k
views
How close a match we need to close a recurring question as a duplicate?
An hour ago I closed a question as a duplicate of an, in my opinion appropriate, generic question. Two gold badge holders have since expressed disagreement with my decision, and the question has since ...
- 137k
17
votes
2
answers
338
views
Why are there requirements for duplicated questions?
Today I found a questions to be a duplicate, and I even remembered that I gave an answer to the non-duplicate. As I tried to close the duplicate as a duplicate, it told me I can't choose the question ...
17
votes
1
answer
355
views
Duplicate of a deleted question
I just came across this question, and it made me wonder what the policy is for deleting questions which have duplicates pointing to them. I don't have any particular stake in this specific question, ...
- 27.8k
17
votes
0
answers
651
views
Questions being reported as duplicates despite the "duplicate" being a generalization to the other
I am a second year math student and a fairly new user of this page so there's still a lot of things I don't understand both in the site and about maths. This is why I tend to ask a lot of questions as ...
- 541
16
votes
1
answer
572
views
Original post marked as duplicate
I was just asked to review a question that was posted in 2010, and that has now been closed as a duplicate of a more recent post (this was closed in favour of this).
Is it normal and/or accepted for ...
- 23.3k
16
votes
1
answer
307
views
What's the difference between duplicate flag and close duplicate flag?
What's the difference between duplicate flag and close duplicate flag?
When I want to flag something as duplicated there are two ways:
Flagging as a duplicate:
Flagging as should be closed → ...
- 3,600
16
votes
2
answers
281
views
Duplicate Question Where Neither have *Complete* Answers
I just voted to close this question as a duplicate of this other one. However, I am unsure if this was exactly the right action to take, given that, though the latter question has an upvoted answer, ...
- 61.3k
16
votes
0
answers
114
views
Request: When closing a question as duplicate, to show all the linked questions
When people post "This question is a duplicate of XXX", would it be possible for the selections shown when we decide to close a question as duplicate, to also show XXX? This could be easily done by ...
- 72.2k
15
votes
2
answers
585
views
Proof-verification and duplicates.
When someone posts a question, which asks for verification of their proof of something, the mathematical content of that question will often be a duplicate of another question.
Now, in order to help ...
- 21.4k
15
votes
5
answers
261
views
What to do with a newer post and a related, older, less thorough post?
Let me give a specific example. Today, I answered this post, and my answer seemed familiar. Looking through my old answers, I found that I'd answered this post a while back. The older post is a less ...
- 104k
15
votes
1
answer
471
views
What happens to otherwise good answers when their question is closed?
I answered this question the other day. It was one of those cases when I just happened to see it right as it was posted and it was a fun question that I knew something about. So I gave an answer (...
- 7,466
14
votes
1
answer
458
views
Is it okay to delete unanswered, marked as duplicates questions?
Just what the title says: I've had many questions marked as duplicates when I first started using this site, and I was wondering if it's okay for me to delete them.
- 13.5k
14
votes
1
answer
447
views
Answering my own new and more detailed question rather than an existing one
Recently I have posted this question:
Functions that preserve asymptotic equivalence.
I searched MSE and MO sites for related questions before asking, but didn't succeed, my bad. After few days, I ...
- 987