I do not remember any specific examples, but when I still used SO, I've come across many cases personally where a question closely matching a problem I had was closed as a duplicate of another question that asked about a related, but different problem and had an answer that was not appropriate for my problem and the supposedly duplicate question.

This significantly decreased the utility of clicking on SO links for me, to the point where I would avoid going to search results from SO first.

The comments here are teeming with others voicing similar experiences.

It is quite... something to read your response to this, which pretty much comes across as "nu-uh!", garnished with an appeal to "policy".

I think your SO-specific bubble is a little different from most other people's. I've no doubt that overwhelmingly, the dupes are dupes, but on the other hand, the false positives you're discounting are overwhelming the user experience.

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zahlman 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

> many cases personally where a question closely matching a problem I had was closed as a duplicate of another question that asked about a related, but different problem and had an answer that was not appropriate for my problem and the supposedly duplicate question.

Yes.

We consider that duplicate.

Because the point is whether the question is duplicate, not whether the problem is duplicate. The point is not to solve the problem, so it isn't interesting whether the question is "appropriate to" the problem. The point is to give you the information you need.

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dxdm 3 days ago | parent | next [-]

I don't understand how you can read all this and conclude that people get the information they need.

In fact, your latest response is so far out that I've started to seriously wonder if you're trying to troll. If you aren't: sorry, just trying to tell you how this comes across as absurdly disconnected. If you are: you're bad at trolling, or a master at satire. Either way, I'm outta here.

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AngryData 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

How does "give you the information you need" mesh with "The point is not to solve the problem"? They seem like mutually exclusive goals for 95% of cases.

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zahlman 3 days ago | parent [-]

> How does "give you the information you need" mesh with "The point is not to solve the problem"?

The same way that a K-12 education does.

	▲	n5NOJwkc7kRC a day ago \| parent [-]
		Oh, so... not at all? No, seriously, K-12 education is pretty infamously bad at giving you the information you need.

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llbbdd 3 days ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The "nuh uh" attitude also helps explain the usage graph drop. "The users simply wanted the wrong thing than what the site is for" is also something

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naishoya 3 days ago | parent [-]

^ this whole chain-of-interaction is a wonderful reminder of why I left SO: It was like seeing a movie trailer about a remake of some nearly forgotten B- horror film one was unfortunately allowed to watch when far too young.

Spoiler warning for those who havent seen this movie before:

Callous disregard for the utility and purpose of both the 'Q' and 'A' users; thinly veiled in a 'you don't get to tell me what i care about', wrapped in a 'my concept of how to moderate is just the way it is; if you don't like it, go F* yourself' package, trimmed with a ribbon of 'who do these Lusers that pay the bills think they are' directed at both the site owners (who write the checks to pay the bills) and all three relevant types of visitors, Q's, A's and those who neither ask, nor answer questions, but do see Advertisements and indirectly generate the income which the site owners use to write checks. But who cares?!, since Mods are not being paid (or paid well enough) to adjust a maladjusted concept of 'the way things are' into 'giving a shit' for anyone. Closed with some more vitriol declaring the site still exists and continues to be useful (as nipples on a chicken).

WASH, RINSE, REPEAT...

That was so last decade; I just stopped giving a damn, removed my browser bookmarks and learned to skim past less frequent and less relevant links to useless and meaningless SO pages when they appear in search results.

The funniest outcome is that LLMs will continue to ingest the diminishingly accurate content of sites like this and continue to degrade the utility of even the most broadly defensible LLM use case scenario.

phew, haven't thought that deeply about SO in at least 4 ... wait its 2026, make that 5 years. Good riddance to the the Whole Lot of you.

	▲	gn4d 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		>this whole chain-of-interaction is a wonderful reminder of why I left SO They've become parodies of themselves to such an extent that this topic should be a new sterling example of Poe's law hahahahaha

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gn4d 3 days ago | parent | prev [-]

Exactly... I'm getting a laugh out of this thread because it's so easy to spot the power-trippers who are enraged at how their fiefdom is rapidly going extinct.