<p>If the message "This question has been asked before and already has an answer..." was not carelessly written, then it just covers cases where the question is a duplicate <em>and</em> the OP can find the answer elsewhere in the forum. Nevertheless what @gung refers to is also an existing matter that should be handled: serial posting of the same unanswered question, or just two identical questions, irrespective of whether the first has an answer.    </p>

<p>Pehaps this should be turned into a "feature request" -to close the question as duplicate while having the choice to select one of two messages -the current version of the message or its truncated version that gung proposes.  </p>

<p>Or, perhaps it would be cleverer to close <em>the older</em> one, since it appears that newer questions have more chances of being answered... which would require another message:"This unanswered question has just become a duplicate -of a newer one"!</p>
