Stack Overflow has seen a substantial decline in traffic over the last year that appears to be accelerating. https://observablehq.com/@ayhanfuat/the-fall-of-stack-overflow
this post was submitted on 25 Jul 2023
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Isn't it a good thing if your question is marked as a duplicate? That means you now have lots of answers readily available which already answered the question.
Often the question marked as a duplicate isn't a duplicate, just the person marking it as such didn't spend the time to properly understand the question and realise how it differs. I also see lots of answers to questions mis-understanding the question or trying to force the person asking down their own particular preference, and get tons of votes whilst doing it.
Don't get me wrong, some questions are definitely useful - and some go above-and-beyond - but on average the quality isn't great these days and hasn't been for a while.
But then would you be like "Oh boy let me get slapped next time too"
I'd be like "Oh boy let me get redirected to lots of useful answers to my question next time too".
I don't understand why you would frame that as being "slapped". Does having your question marked as a duplicate hurt your feelings?
No but it feels redundant then to ask it anyways.
Not really. A question that’s simply closed as a duplicate isn’t going to get any answers, and the answers to the original question, while they may have once been reasonable enough to be accepted, might be outdated.
Languages move on and add features, and closing any question as a duplicate precludes new, modern features that provides a better way to answer the original question.
A lot of content on SO is dated to say the least, precisely because reputation harvesters with a dated knowledge of the language are overly keen on closing questions.