Do you search for an answer on Fluther only to find you have to look at multiple duplicates of similar questions to see the answers?

Seeing as I just joined today; no it doesn’t really bother me. However if I’m going to ask a question I will search around a bit to see if anything similar has been posted. I can imagine a few that would be rather annoying seeing over and over again though.

I only really do that if I explicitly remember a similar question recently, and then i’ll usually post a link to it in the other thread.

It doesn’t really bother me, though.

But I do hate it when people link to a question asked about a year ago… It just makes them seem desperate.

I’m loose with dupes. As long as it isn’t on the front page I don’t care. Tons of new people join everyday. I don’t expect them to look a old questions.

Not really. It took me awhile to figure out how to use the search feature aside from the Topics listed and then unless the previous posters used the same topics as, who knows what will show up when the post is submitted.

@hungryhungryhortence I get that a lot when I try to look up stuff. Without categories, it’s very difficult, and even with the ‘tag’ cloud they don’t show up. I tried to find craft questions, and they might as well not exist for all I found.

Well, I just joined two days ago, so it hasn’t been an issue.

But I have seen one particular question asked twice since I’ve joined. I don’t know how often that occurs.

Hell… I may have done it. Hope you all forgive me if that’s the case.

It is annoying to me when I see the same “how can I get this guy to love me” question every day of the week. But I understand that new people haven’t seen the question before, and for most people, if it happened before they got here, then it’s like it never happened.

Eventually people may learn to search for a question, to see if it’s already been asked and answered. Even then, it can be really hard to find the duplicate, since people use slightly different words for the same thing, and they may not be that good at designing search queries, and they may not have the patience to go through several pages looking for their question.

So, I figure it’s on me. If I’m annoyed, I’ll go elsewhere. There are usually other questions that interest me. SOmetimes I’m willing to revisit repeat questions. See if any new ideas have arrived. I used to hop on and paste a link to the same question, but I quickly decided that’s too much work and it’s also exceedingly annoying. I don’t need to be question police. We have mods for that.

I’m relatively new to the site so it doesn’t bother me. In fact, I like to hear recent answers on opinion questions instead of ones from last year because that “conversation” is dead. The person asking most likely wants input from others that they can discuss with them.

I can see why it would irritate some people, though. Especially with fact-based questions with answers that will not change.

i don’t mind when a question is repeated every so often. especially since going through search results can be kind of a pain in the ass. i try to look up questions on occasion, and it always takes me forever, and i usually have to click on a few kind of irrelevant ones and then go through the sibling questions to find one close to what i’m looking for. also, there are always new people, and there are always new opinions even from members who have been here for awhile. so repeating a question after awhile is hardly a problem.

that being said, i hate when people treat fluther like yahoo answers and just ask a question without even looking. i mean obviously they don’t care as they don’t live here aren’t on here all the time, but being considerate goes a long way. and i can’t stand seeing a million ‘how do i get this boy/girl to like me?’ questions. chances are we aren’t going to be able to offer anything up that any random teen magazine hasn’t already.

Yes, I have tried to not repeat, but sometimes the smallest nuance or difference elicits a unique set of answers. It is actually quite impressive how that works..

@daloon It’s not even so much answering the same question over and over, but when I look up a question, I have to search through so many duplicate questions to find the answers.

Earlier, I didn’t. But, when my questions got answers with links to previous posts, I started searching them before asking.

I understand what your asking. When I search for “redwoods” for example, Whats the most beautiful place you have ever visited/seen? comes up as a result twice. For some searches duplicate results are even more prevalent. It’s annoying. At least it’s better than the old search.

As for craft questions, I think browsing under the topic: crafts gives you about all Fluther has to offer in respect to past craft questions. A few craft questions with poor tags probably did slip through, but for the most part, those are the craft questions.

Of course not. I only ask original questions and I have to deal with the hoi polloi quality of other people’s questions (yours excluded of course) so there you have it.