Post History

## Update based on feedback

I really like the ideas proposed in [this answer](https://meta.codidact.com/posts/284169/284228#answer-284228), which at the time of this posting has the same vote count as this question (+6, -0).  The proposal in that answer creates what I think is a better experience for the asker *and* the community, and is less complicated from a behavior and UI perspective.  Win!  Some additional points came up in a [discussion](https://meta.codidact.com/comments/thread/4524), and [this other answer](https://meta.codidact.com/posts/284169/284257#answer-284257) also raises important points, so I'm going to try to bring this all together here.

New proposed workflow:

1. A user with the Participate Everywhere ability marks a question as either **similar to** or **a duplicate of** another linked question. 

- You can only propose a **duplicate** if the other question has at least one well-received answer (thanks Lundin for raising that).  "Duplicate" is about guiding people to answers; if a bunch of similar questions exist but none are answered, then perhaps what we have been waiting for is the right framing, and we shouldn't shut the new question down.  (Maybe the others will end up as duplicates of this one!)

- **Similar** is just informational; we find a place to show the links with the question.  The question remains open to receive answers.  The rest of this workflow is specifically about duplicates.

2. The author has 72 hours to respond, as described in the first answer I linked.

- If the author has the Edit ability, we (once) treat the edit as resolving the duplicate suggestion.  Those links are moved into the "similar to" list, and somebody might re-nominate a duplicate.

- If the author does not have the Edit ability, or if the author has previously resolved a duplicate suggestion here with an edit, the "suggested duplicate" notice on the question is updated to add that the author edited after the suggestion was made.  Anybody else with the Edit ability can confirm that the edit resolves the issue and dismiss the duplicate notice (moving it to the "similar" list as above).

3. While there's a duplicate suggestion pending, we show a notice and alert people starting to answer.

4. When the author disputes the duplicate suggestion or the window expires, the community can vote as described in the feature proposal.  Instead of a net score, we're looking for a ratio, as suggested by Fie, with a minimum number -- something like "at least 3 dupe votes, and at least 60% of all votes are yes".  As Fie pointed out, this allows voting to scale with question popularity, which I think will help prevent the ping-pong effects of groups of three users alternately voting yes and no.

5. Removing a duplicate linkage ("reopening") is possible; see step 5 in Fie's answer.