Referring to: https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/help/privileges/close-questions
Specifically for duplicates it states:
When should I vote to close a question?
Questions should be closed by casting close votes if:
- they are sufficiently similar to existing questions and would be answered identically to them.
- they are unclear, too broad, or otherwise problematic to identifying the problem in a way that can be
- properly addressed by answerers they are sufficiently off-topic, as outlined in the help center.
(emphasis mine)
I was in a discussion this morning on this question: Should I throw guard exceptions that will be thrown by internal methods anyway?
Whereby it was marked as a duplicate to a question that was several months newer, I expressed confusion and was directed to this meta post:
Closing a two year old question as a duplicate of a one year old question?
Regardless of whether or not it was a correct move, I believe the information on the help page does not cover this policy and should be updated.
The current use of would be in the help text implies that a question, as it currently stands, has not yet been answered, or is likely to receive newer answers and implies that perhaps this close reason is best suited to new questions. I don't believe that is the case in my situation, and so the help text should be updated to cover closing as duplicate older questions in line with the meta post I linked above to avoid confusion.
Do you agree?
