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We got a flag on this question pointing out its high similarity to this other question. The second question is newer and the first has lots more views, so I closed the second as a duplicate of the first. There are good answers in both places.

Should we merge these questions so that all the answers are together? Or is there a significant difference between a 12-year-old author and a 16-year-old author that these shouldn't be treated as duplicates to begin with (and we should edit to make the difference clear and reopen)?

What does the community think about these two questions and their answers? Do any of the answers apply only to one question and not the other? Should we change anything about their current states?

Update: An answer points out that there are a lot more of these, so I don't think we want to start merging things. What should we do about them? Is there one question that everything else should be closed as a duplicate of? (Which?) Do we need a canonical question? Do we just make sure they're all tagged and otherwise leave things alone?

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    Why not merge all of them (those that have answers) into one? Just trying to understand the general logic of when merging is the best course of action, and when it isn't.
    – Galastel supports GoFundMonica
    Jan 27, 2019 at 19:32
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    @Galastel merges are for the (rare) case where the questions involved are identical -- all answers are valid for all versions of the question. This means reviewing all those answers, in case there are nuances that make that not true (this answer responds to the author being a pre-teen, that one to choice of genre, etc). Networks of duplicates, so the questions all get linked to each other, are more common and allow for those nuances. Also, with merges all questions but one get deleted and there can be only one acceptance (from the author of the surviving question).
    – Monica Cellio
    Jan 27, 2019 at 19:38

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Reset to default
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  • We've closed this question by a 14-year-old as a duplicate of the 16-year-old.
  • This one by a 9-year-old got closed as a duplicate of the 12-year-old.
  • And this one by a 13-year-old got closed as a duplicate of the 16-year-old.

Since we're not going for a merge, I do still think all those questions are duplicates. Which one should be the one that all other questions point to? I'm inclined to keep the question that has answers by Amadeus and Mark Baker, on the grounds that it has answers by Amadeus and Mark Baker. I don't think we need a canonical question here - the questions are very much the same, we already close new ones as duplicates of old ones. Whatever question we keep open would serve as "canonical" enough.

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  • Oh, so it's more widespread than I'd first thought. This happens sometimes.
    – Monica Cellio
    Jan 27, 2019 at 19:16
  • @MonicaCellio The 13-year-old has some highly upvoted answers - by Amadeus and by Mark Baker. 14-year-old got a nice answer from Matthew Dave, with few upvotes probably because the question was closed. The 9-year-old's question got closed before it got any answers. There might be more of them lurking about - those just had young-author tag.
    – Galastel supports GoFundMonica
    Jan 27, 2019 at 19:21

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