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I was browsing around Meta and I found two types of "duplicate banners":

This question already has answers here:

and

This question already exists:

Is there a difference? When should one be used over the other? The second one sounds ambiguous; what does it mean for a question to "already exist"?

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1 Answer 1

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This question already has answers here

This duplicate reason is when a question is closed as a duplicate of another question asked by another user, where that question has at least one answer with either an upvote or has been marked as the solution. Example

This question already exists:

This is where a user has reposted their question and it is closed as a duplicate of that. The duplicate candidate does not require any answers but must be asked by the same user. For example (for 10K users) I closed this question as a duplicate of this one as it was the same question by the same user. Images for under 10K users:

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This scenario normally happens when a user posts a question that is closed, and then instead of addressing the close reason, simply reposts it.

This close reason is not possible if 2 questions are identical but from different users (though at times I wish it were), the user has the be the same not the questions. (If you do have a scenario where the same identical question is posted you should raise a custom mod flag, as it is likely the user if trying to avoid a question ban and using a second account to post the same poor quality questions.)

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  • Another scenario I've seen with identical questions a few times is several students from the same class posting the same homework dump/trying to cheat on the same test.
    – John Montgomery
    Commented Dec 7, 2020 at 19:44
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    Provided that the Users aren't simply doing a "copy pasta" from their homework they should be different at least @JohnMontgomery . Though I admit I too have seen such scenarios. I often tell the users that perhaps that they should talk to their fellow student about the problem so that they can work together on the problem, and link them to the dupe. Then (provided it's a low quality homework help question, as they have different "rules") vote to close with my custom message about how to actually ask a homework help question.
    – Thom A
    Commented Dec 7, 2020 at 19:47

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