<p>It's clear policy that exact duplicates should close (since we want to be able to find the <em>best</em> answer or answers to that question, not just an answer).</p>
<p>I think the question should be retained* so that the different ways of asking a question lead to the same answer. As far as I understand, that's the typical case.</p>
<p>*(I think dupes should almost never be deleted -- unless its word-for-word and has no answers; either they're so close that a separate question is no use whatever -- in which case merge it -- or they're expressed in a slightly different way that someone might hit with a search, which suggests the question has value even if it means the same thing.)</p>
<p>In my opinion a search that hits a closed duplicate is a success, as long as the link covers what the person wanted.</p>
<p>So the point of closure of duplicates -- what it's <em>for</em> -- is to get the best answers to that particular question in one place.</p>
<p>However, sometimes questions aren't quite duplicates -- a near duplicate probably contains some useful information that may help but the details may be different enough that another answer or set of answers is worth having for that specific issue.</p>
<p>There's also indication that we could take more care to explain <em>why</em> we're closing; even the newer, friendlier close messages can sometimes be confusing and even confronting, and the purpose of closing may be unclear. There's sometimes a tendency to see closing as criticism or punishment when it's actually part of how SE is supposed to work. Done right it helps people find good answers.</p>
<p>There's support (including founder-support) for the position of perhaps not closing when sometimes we might be inclined to. For example, there's <a href="http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2009/04/handling-duplicate-questions/">this blog post from Jeff Atwood</a>; see the section under &quot;Borderline duplicates&quot;, including:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>These have [...] subtle differences that may make them legitimately standalone questions</p>
<p>There’s often benefit to having multiple subtle variants of a question around, as people tend to ask and search using completely different words, and the better our coverage, the better odds our fellow programmers can find the answer they’re looking for.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>I do think we sometimes have a tendency to &quot;over-categorize&quot; and lose subtle shades of distinction between questions that may help users, so we should perhaps consider whether there can be value in tolerating some posts that may seem like duplicates at first blush. As mentioned at the blog post, we can use other tools than close-as-duplicate to get people to see those other good answers - good use of tags, and links to closely related posts.</p>
