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locked by Yvette Colomb Jun 28 at 18:00


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  • When your question gets at least 1 vote or flag as a duplicate, the This question may already have an answer here header is added to your question. This is only visible to you at this point in time. It won't be visible to anyone else until your question is actually closed as a duplicate (which requires 5 votes, or a single vote to close by someone with a gold badge in one of the tags).




But if your question is actually closed as a duplicate (either by 5 votes, or a single vote by a gold badge holder, the guidance linked by gnat in Someone flagged my question as already answered, but it's not is the best advice you can get.

If it isn't actually a duplicate, you have to assume that someone misread or misunderstood your question. Don't assume malice or laziness.

  1. Clarify your question. Is there something missing or explained poorly that caused someone to think it was a duplicate when it wasn't?
  2. Is your MCVE unclear? Consider providing a different (or additional) example to better illustrate your problem.
  3. Explain why the question isn't a duplicate. It is possible the question is similar and a good explanation and help clarify the problem. It is also possible you tried that solution and it didn't work. If so, then explain what you tried and why it didn't work.

When trying clarify or explain, do not do this in comments, but edit the question. And please don't stuff "EDIT:" at the bottom or top of the post. Just rewrite your question to clarify and make the whole post as cohesive and well written as possible. "EDIT" markers all over the place just clutter up the post and make it harder to understand.

Your edits should try to explain in some level of detail why the post isn't a duplicate. Just stating "this isn't a duplicate, you morons" or editing the title to say it isn't a duplicate are generally not a good choices. For maximum impact, try to keep your edits focused on the problem, and not extraneous information. The more fluff or meta commentary you add, the more likely you are going to distract from your intent, which will not help get your post reopened (often it will backfire on you).

And you don't have to wait for your post to be closed to try to explain why. You should actually try to preemptively fix your post when you get the first vote (or flag) as it is easier to keep a question open than it is to wait for it to get closed and then try to get it reopened.

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