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Going through the review queue I hit a swarm of questions all asking about summoning sickness in magic

All these questions are different, but it all comes down to

Do green m&ms have summoning sickness? Do red m&ms have summoning sickness? Do brown m&ms have summoning sickness? ...

They are all answered with the same answer, all m&ms have summoning sickness

I am exaggerating the similarity of questions a little bit, but not by much

Do we close these questions as duplicates, or leave them open?

Examples

Does a creature returned by the Undying effect have summoning sickness?

Do creatures summoned by a Planeswalker have summoning sickness?

Do creatures who come into play tapped have summoning sickness?

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  • @Rainbolt oops, i feel stupid, i was sure I was on meta
    – Andrey
    Jul 22, 2015 at 14:23
  • I kind of figured you might have just accidentally not noticed where you were, with your 2k rep. I've done it before.
    – Rainbolt
    Jul 22, 2015 at 14:24
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    So, the reason all of those questions are in the review queue is because I wrote boardgames.stackexchange.com/questions/25234/…. And the reason I wrote that question is because of the problem you describe. The whole point was to have a duplicate target for those questions.
    – murgatroid99 Mod
    Jul 22, 2015 at 15:10
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    You have to realise that some Cards in magic are very vague in their description of putting monsters on the field it can be open to misinterpretation. I have a question myself about summoning Sickness, its more about what the card suggests as opposed to the Set rules of Summoning sickness. Granted they all have the same outcome so could really be closed as duplicates. But then again the rules could change in Newer versions and the closure as duplicate may not be valid idk... I do find your Question somewhat condescending... but in a funny way
    – ThunderToes
    Jul 22, 2015 at 15:25
  • @murgatroid99 My opinion is the questions should be down-voted and closed. To me they seem similar to asking made up rules like "If I have no creatures, can my opponent attack me with multiple creatures?" But we can see some disagree, so voting on the best answer to this question may form the best policy for the site
    – Andrey
    Jul 22, 2015 at 15:38
  • @Andrey You're free to vote however you want. And if you're suggesting that they should be closed as duplicates of my question, I agree.
    – murgatroid99 Mod
    Jul 22, 2015 at 15:42
  • @Andrey I just realized: you went into the close vote review queue and found a bunch of reviews for closing these questions as duplicates. And then you went to meta, and suggested that they be closed as duplicates. What exactly was the point here?
    – murgatroid99 Mod
    Jul 22, 2015 at 15:52
  • @murgatroid99 Here is the actual story. I went to the close queue and started reading questions. The first one seemed OK and i voted to keep it open. The second one was similar, not enough to be a dupe of the first, on it's own still ok. When i read the 5th question trying to find a loophole in summoning sickness, i realized something more complicated is going on
    – Andrey
    Jul 22, 2015 at 16:05
  • @Andrey Closing as duplicate makes sense - that's the point of writing a canonical question. But I'm confused, why are you suggesting downvoting? Those were all posted before the canonical question was written; there's nothing wrong with the questions.
    – Cascabel
    Jul 22, 2015 at 16:19
  • @murgatroid99 One reasonable thing to ask would be "is is appropriate to close old questions as duplicates of a new canonical question?" (since it in some sense seems unfair to close a question that was fine before) but I'm not sure if that's actually what's being asked here.
    – Cascabel
    Jul 22, 2015 at 16:20
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    @Andrey In the future, when you are reading the review queue and get to a question that's voted to be closed as a duplicate, you should also read the duplicate so that you know what you're voting on. They even provide a tab near the top labeled "duplicate" for doing exactly that.
    – murgatroid99 Mod
    Jul 22, 2015 at 16:28
  • @murgatroid99 What made me uncomfortable about all this was closing older questions as dupes to a newer question. I now see that there is a precedent for it meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/254782/…
    – Andrey
    Jul 23, 2015 at 15:29

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Do we close these questions as duplicates?

You should close duplicate questions if they are duplicates. You didn't need to be told that...

How do I determine if they are duplicates?

There are no hard and fast rules. You have to decide for yourself if two questions are asking for the same thing.

I am on the fence about this one, which is why I came to meta to ask for other opinions.

Okay, here's mine.

My goal is to make the Internet a better place. I do that by filtering users to the best question. I do that by closing lesser questions as duplicates of greater ones.

I tend to favor

  • Broader scope
  • Elegant writing
  • Clarity
  • All else equal, I close the newer one

This new summoning sickness question is general and clear. I would vote to close the older ones as a duplicate of this newer one. However, I encourage someone to write a shorter answer. The current self-answer is too long.

Somewhat related rant: I want to encourage the community to stop labeling questions "canonical". If the voters can't tell that your question is canonical, then you didn't ask a very good canonical question.

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    re the rant: Sure, canonical questions should and generally are obvious to anyone who's been around for a bit. That doesn't mean the label is a bad idea, though. They're rare enough that plenty of people see them and don't realize what's going on, so an explicit hint is helpful. Maybe the best place for the note is in a comment instead of at the top of the question, but I don't think there's any harm in nudging people to remember it as a potential duplicate target.
    – Cascabel
    Jul 24, 2015 at 5:11
  • @Jefromi Good idea. I would be happier with a comment.
    – Rainbolt
    Jul 27, 2015 at 13:31

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