This question and this question are not really duplicates, however they are similar. I gave a pretty good answer to one, but that answer actually fits even better on the other question. Is it bad form to copy my answer completely over from one to the other?
-
5Somehow I'd say that if an answer is exactly the same, chances are high that the two questions are dupes. If not, why not change the new answer ever so slightly that it accords with what you perceive as differences? (Or the other way around, as you seem to imply with "better fit")– LаngLаngСMay 28, 2019 at 16:36
Add a comment
|
2 Answers
I think I was probably overthinking it. Next time I'm in such a situation I'll blockquote most of the overlap with a link like any other source and add a bit to make sure my answer addresses any minute differences between the questions.
On other SE sites (I have English.SE in mind), if questions attract similar answers, then they are considered duplicates.
For example, questions "what does the term X mean?" and "how has the meaning of the term X changed over the years?" are not really the same. But since they are likely to attract the same answers, they are likely to be merged into 1 question by a moderator or one of them can be closed as a duplicate of another.
-
I don't think that example is really true. Do you have an example of [single-word-requests] and [etymology] questions being merged on English.SE?– JJJ ModNov 8, 2019 at 18:42
-