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Should we reverse the duplication on this: Can I cast Blade Ward and then make my monk unarmed strike with a bonus action? and make Can a monk make a bonus unarmed attack after using shocking grasp? the duplicate?

The newer answer is much more fleshed out and seems a better Q&A to point to.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Related: Duplicate question with better documented answers \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast
    May 17, 2018 at 23:47
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    \$\begingroup\$ Would you mind posting your argument for the reversal as an answer to this question? That way we can see votes specifically for/against reversing, whereas votes on this post aren't obviously arguing either way. \$\endgroup\$
    – nitsua60 Mod
    May 18, 2018 at 2:33

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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If the intent is to make the stack a better Q&A

The question duplication link direction would better serve to direct visitors to the better answer. That means that the definition of "duplicate" is slightly different than the vernacular interpretation in that the earlier question could be a duplicate of a future thing. The temporal relationship then has dissonance with the usual meaning of duplicate.

Better Q&A is more useful

When I want a question answered or when I want to know the answer to a question, I'd like the best answer. Making that answer closer to the surface of the investigation is useful to the reader.

If the intent is to make the stack a history of questions and their answers

The duplicate question link should always point from more recent to more distant in time. The aim being to prevent a proliferation of repetitive answers to the repetative questions. Basically, record the acceptable and voted for answers for an OP's question and point to the history to avoid being drown by the noise of repeated questions.

Add a comment linking the two questions or answers

Solve the issue by adding a comment or question addendum linking to the more complete answer. That would side step the issue of using "duplicate" in an unconventional way.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Re #2: I don't think there's any special benefit in always marking a more recent question as a duplicate of an older one, if the newer one is better formulated and has better answers. That said, if the answer on the newer question being better is the only consideration, we could always suggest the answerer leave the same answer on the other question, modifying it as necessary to match that question. Alternately, I believe moderators can also merge the two questions (if they're identical) and move the answer to the other automatically, but someone would then still have to fix the answer to fit. \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast
    May 19, 2018 at 5:16

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