Finding similar questions/posts and new questions whose answers are already present?

Question

While going through Hinduism SE. , I came across couple of questions/ posts which are exactly similar , somewhat related to same topic or whose answers are already present in some other posts.

1) This and This

2) This and This

3) This and This

Some of the these or other similar posts may be different in wording but the topic and meaning of post/question is exactly same.

Can we somehow merge such similar posts into one ? Or request users to delete their unanswered questions /posts , which are exactly similar and answers of those questions are present in other posts (new or old) .The purpose of this discussion is to increase number of answered Questions and ultimatly the percentage of answered Questions.

Everybody's views are invited.

Answer 1

Q. Can we somehow merge such similar posts into one ? Or request users to delete their unanswered questions /posts , which are exactly similar and answers of those questions are present in other posts (new or old)

Similar questions may be handled as duplicate. That is what close button/feature is for:

So, If you find newer question as duplicate to existing one or (as expected in question) unanswered question that is answered through similar question, vote for close. Visit How should duplicate questions be handled? for complete guideline.

• The decision whether question should be considered as duplicate or not depends on:

  Questions may be duplicates if they have the same (potential) answers. This includes not only word-for-word duplicates, but also the same idea expressed in different words.^[1]

  Questions asking about the same aspect of the same concept, but with different examples, may or may not be considered duplicates. It depends how easy it is to figure out one example from the other. If it's only a matter of changing some numerical values or some variable names, they're duplicates. If understanding why the questions are at all related requires a detailed explanation, the questions aren't duplicates, merely related.

• The decision about which question should be voted for closing depends on:

  Usually a recent question will be closed as a duplicate of an older question. But this isn't an absolute rule. The general rule is to keep the question with the best collection of answers, and close the other one as a duplicate.

^[1] includes the following discussion of Q.

Discussion : I came across couple of questions/ posts which are exactly similar , somewhat related to same topic or whose answers are already present in some other posts.

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Now talking about merging, it is only done by diamond moderator in some special cases. Visit following posts related to merging:

• What are merged questions?
• Are there guidelines on direction for merging questions (which question to close/merge?)
• Mark-as-duplicate vs. Merge

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Tip: If you're looking for similar questions for a particular post, then you can use list of Related questions at right bar which can help you in finding questions that covers similar topics.