Repeated/Duplicate/Identical Questions

Question

So this is pretty straightforward I think:

• What do we do if a user creates multiple identical questions?
• What if a user make another account and asks an identical question?
• What if another user asks the same identical question - even if the intention is to get an unanswered question answered?

EDIT: In this case I’m referring to it is a copy/paste of another question.

I can see that someone may ask a question and not get an answer to it, thus leading to them re-asking it. However, realistically they should just bump the original post.

I can also see a user, seeing someone else’s question thy went unanswered, and then asking it again - still with the intention of getting an answer. Yet, still it would be best for this new user to just bump the other users original post...

So how should we (as a self-administering community) address things like this? Do we/should we inform users in any way other than flagging as duplicate?

Specifically, these:

Original Question (~4 months old)

New Identical Question

ADDED: Also in this specific case I can’t flag/close as duplicate since neither Q has an upvoted/accepted answer... so is the correct thing to just leave it until such a time when t can be flagged/closed?

Answer 1

We need to flag them as "duplicate". The new one should be marked as the duplicate to the old one. If, for some reason, there's actually an answer on the new question, then mark the old one as a duplicate. We definitely aren't trying to lose the information. This shouldn't really matter if it's the OP casting the question twice or not.