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The first question was asked, with all possible tags, but received no long answers.

A few months later, the second question was asked without address the first one. However, the second one received long answers.

Should any of them be closed?

When I ask any question, I always spend a long time researching similar questions, looking for any duplications. If there are any duplication, I won't ask my question.

The authoritative guidance on Stackexchange says something like:

Usually a recent question will be closed as a duplicate of an older question, but this isn't an absolute rule. The general rule is to keep the better content.

However, in my humble opinion, I believe that the second question shall not be closed after it received many good answers; it might be helpful to tag it in the first place before it was answered.

I was very curious about this topic because in academia or the scientific research communities, usually the first publication will not be "closed" or tagged as "duplication".

Though I, personally, do agree that the second question or answer, if it is much better worded, is more valuable: the rule of SE is much better than the general rule in academia.

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    Not sure I understand your last paragraph. Are you saying that Academia.SE has a different practice that SE generally? (wasn't aware of this....). Or are you making a comparison to published articles, and how a better-written article is of little value of the main findings have already been published?
    – cag51 Mod
    Feb 7, 2022 at 18:59
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    @cag51 Your second meaning. The better-written article could have a huge value but still less than the first article.
    – High GPA
    Feb 7, 2022 at 19:05

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Closing duplicates is mostly for a goal of consolidating the location of answers to one place.

Ideally, when a question is asked that is similar to another, people recognize it right away, the old question has good answers, and the new one gets closed as a duplicate of the old.

Sometimes, the newer question may be written better, tagged better, etc; still, if the old question has good answers, the new one should get closed as a duplicate. The old question can still be improved by editing it, adding tags, etc.

Sometimes, an older question doesn't get answered, but a new question does; the old one might then get marked as a duplicate of the new. That's okay, too; closure as duplicate in that case still serves the same purpose.

See also How should duplicate questions be handled?

Usually a recent question will be closed as a duplicate of an older question, but this isn't an absolute rule. The general rule is to keep the question with the best collection of answers, and close the other one as a duplicate

In the scenario you describe, it seems like closing the older question as a duplicate of the newer one makes sense. It's possible for moderators to merge answers into one question but this is fairly rare, can get quite messy, and is usually avoided. If the newer question can be improved with edits including appropriate tags, clear language, etc, then editing it is a good choice for anyone.

There is no penalty for having a question closed as a duplicate. Duplicate questions are okay in the system - they may help people searching for answers (the target audience of StackExchange Q&A) find the answers they need using different search terms, and that's a good thing, we just want to try to funnel people to the same place when possible.

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  • Many thanks for your help! I was very curious because in academia, usually the first publication will not be "closed" or tagged as "duplication". Though I do agree with you that the second question or answer, if it is much better worded, is more valuable: the rule of SE is much better than the general rule in academia.
    – High GPA
    Feb 7, 2022 at 17:30
  • After doing some research, it is clearly that marking as duplication is clearly a punishment. One of the Devs of this site, ᔕᖺᘎᕊ, says: "Yes, duplicates are taken into account in the automatic-ban". By closing the first question, we are punishing the first asker and rewarding the second asker's lack of research efforts.
    – High GPA
    Feb 8, 2022 at 1:39
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    @HighGPA Marking a duplicate question is not a punishment, and we keep closed duplicates around as useful contributions to the site. Very low-effort questions that are duplicates of others may attract other things like downvotes that do have an aspect of punishment. To get into question-ban territory would require many many poor posts; it should not be of any concern to people asking normally and putting in effort towards their questions.
    – Bryan Krause Mod
    Feb 8, 2022 at 17:38
  • Hi Bryan. I agree with you that marking a duplicate should not be a punishment. It is also clear that this system penalizes askers with closed duplicated questions. I understand that this punishment might be small, but small punishment is still punishment, black and white. It is not the point that I or anyone is worrying about q-banning. I put this up only to question the fairness of the system: the action of closing a duplicate question, even if the question was asked first and well-received, cause harm to the asker.
    – High GPA
    Feb 8, 2022 at 18:02
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    @HighGPA The details of the question-ban system are intentionally opaque but from my experience with the system it seems most likely to me that a well-received (that is, upvoted) question that is closed as a duplicate of another is still going to be a net positive for the user. I do not believe there is any penalty for an upvoted question to be closed as a duplicate. There may be additional penalty for a negatively received question that is also closed as a duplicate. I would strongly suggest not worrying about this at all, there are plenty of better things to focus attention on.
    – Bryan Krause Mod
    Feb 8, 2022 at 18:09
  • I was just intent to have more people recognize the possible unfairness of the system. Thanks for letting me know that there are better things to focus on. Probably you are correct that trying to expose the unfairness and promote fairness in the system is a waste of effort because it will unlikely be noticed by the devs.
    – High GPA
    Feb 8, 2022 at 21:37
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    @HighGPA FYI, ᔕᖺᘎᕊ was and is not a dev, but just a regular user like us.
    – Andrew T.
    Feb 13, 2022 at 5:28
  • @AndrewT. I think he wrote many scripts and codes for this site, so he has access to some of the codes. Please correct me if I am wrong.
    – High GPA
    Feb 13, 2022 at 11:19
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    @HighGPA Userscripts only modify the HTML pages delivered to users; everyone has access to that code because that code is necessary to tell your browser what to display and is shared with everyone who views any web site.
    – Bryan Krause Mod
    Feb 13, 2022 at 15:03
  • @HighGPA I thought you mistook him with shog9, who was an ex-CM and had access to some of the codes. But ᔕᖺᘎᕊ is just a regular user. He might have written some userscripts, but so do other regular users.
    – Andrew T.
    Feb 14, 2022 at 9:30
  • @AndrewT. On the same question, Shog9 also says that Closing is a signal in q-banning, albeit being weak.
    – High GPA
    Feb 14, 2022 at 13:03

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