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As someone who is able to edit posts, I have been using the ability to mark posts as duplicates inside the OP question using the block quote with the text 'Possible Duplicate' or 'Exact Duplicate'. To clean up the question faster, I had been flagging the post for moderator attention but there are likely fewer moderator users on at a time than 3k and above users.

Having said that, is there a better way to mark questions as duplicates (tagging? downvoting?) that is universally accepted or understood to get the attention of those who can close or migrate the questions?

It would be nice to have a 3k user panel or something to indicate questions that need attention and cleanup. As someone who does not yet have the ability to close or migrate, I don't mind doing the yeoman's job of finding those questions that need attention so someone else with enough rep can deal with them, but it would nicer for the ability for them to be easily filtered by those who can deal with them.

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I don't mind your finding duplicates, but please don't edit them into the question; I for one would see that and assume the question had already been closed (I don't always read things carefully), and then there's the duplicate duplicate links that John Smithers mentioned. Leave a comment instead. –  mmyers Dec 28 '09 at 22:24
As mmyers suggests, leave a comment. If nothing else, this can provide a user who honestly didn't realize he was asking a duplicate with a path to the answer even if the question doesn't get closed for a while. Yes, some users will take this as an invitation to argue with you ("it's not a dup, i'm asking about programmers' favorite progressive rock music!"), but in this instance the advantages offset this small downside. –  Shog9 Dec 28 '09 at 22:41
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2 Answers

up vote 3 down vote accepted

Please Please Please don't edit in the duplicate post, leave it as a comment or as part of the moderator flag. I end up having to clean up the post before closing it, if I don't miss that it hasn't been closed yet, due to the habit of some users to edit in the duplicate link. It is automatically done once closed, and therefore creates more work for the moderators. Also it means the question is unnecessarily bumped to the home page because of an edit.

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10k users have tools to see these votes, I've heard. Moderator see them, too. If you really think it should be closed fast, flag it for mod attention.

Do not edit the post. After closing the dupe, links are added automatically. Doubling them is annoying.

Keep in mind: if a question does not get closed, when you think it should, then it could be that the other users have a different opinion than you have ;)

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@John: Check. It's not that there are differing opinions, just that it stays open as a duplicate for too long –  staticx Dec 29 '09 at 0:21
Trust me, it'll be taken care of. The communities around the Trilogy are large enough to make that happen. Worst case, as has already been suggested, flag for mod attention. –  John Rudy Dec 29 '09 at 2:14
10k users can't see flags for moderators. Just spam and offensive flags can be seen. –  LeakyCode Dec 29 '09 at 6:09
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