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Consider the following list of questions of the form "Is X kitniyos" or "Why is/n't X kitniyos":

On their own, these questions are fine. But then we run into How do we operationally define kitniyos?

As per Closing as duplicate of broader post, the community consensus seems to be that if a complete answer to question A would also answer question B, then question B should be closed as a duplicate of question A. So, since any complete answer to How do we operationally define kitniyos? will set forth criteria by which we can determine if something is kitniyos or not, all of the above questions would seem to be a duplicate of this broader one...right?

I do not think that the following questions should be closed as a duplicate, as all of them address a specific concern unique to that question which would not be addressed at all by the broader kitniyos question:

Is my interpretation of the duplicate policy correct, and if so, should the questions on the above list be closed as duplicates of the broader post?

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While I think you have understood the policy in general, I'm not sure it should apply in this case. Knowing how to define kitniyos does not necessarily mean that you know whether an individual item is kitniyos. Indeed, after reading all three answers to that question I still have no idea whether any specific items are kitniyos or not.

If the broad question would have been asking for a list of things that are kitniyos or things that are not kitniyos (and wouldn't be itself closed as Too Broad) then I would say that all other questions of the "Is X kitniyos/not kitniyos?" sort should be closed as duplicates. However, as it currently stands, the broader question doesn't mention most of the specific cases, and the answers to the broad question don't necessarily help you figure out if the specific cases fit the criteria. Since the broad question can be answered without any reference to specific cases, there is no reason to expect an answer to deal with such cases.

Therefore, it would seem to me that (barring any edits) questions about specific food items can be sufficiently independent of the general principles of kitniyos such that they would not be duplicates.

Perhaps a test to see whether such questions should be duplicates can be as follows:

If the new question would begin by citing the answer(s) to the existing question and the new question would still make sense then it should not be a duplicate.

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  • Arguably, a “complete” answer would list those plants for which there is a tradition, rather than just saying that it applies to wherever there’s a tradition.
    – DonielF
    Apr 11, 2019 at 16:31
  • @DonielF I would think that you could completely answer how to operationally define kitnios without mentioning specific foods, though it would certainly be a nice bonus if an answer also listed kitnios items.
    – Alex
    Apr 12, 2019 at 15:55

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