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The policy regarding closing something as a duplicate of a broader post has already been discussed.

Recently Jewish conversion? got a close vote as a duplicate of Is it possible for a Gentile to convert to Judaism?, and it got me thinking: the latter question is a perfectly fine question, except that it’s too broad and should be broken into several different questions. If so, it doesn’t seem right that the former should be closed as a duplicate of the latter. (Yes, I know it was closed as unclear, not duplicate. I’m just using it as an example.)

Is this indeed the policy, that posts can be closed as duplicates of broader ones if the broader post is too broad? Or does the policy not apply in this situation?

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It seems like a bad idea to close a question as a duplicate of another question that's closed for any reason. The point of closing as a duplicate is to direct people interested in the new manifestation of the question to another post where an older manifestation is already getting answers. If the target post is closed then by definition it's not getting answers, and if it happens to already have answers, they're probably not being maintained, and there's definitely no opportunity to supersede them with better answers.

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  • To play devil’s advocate, would it be better to try fixing the original, if possible?
    – DonielF
    Jun 11, 2019 at 14:08
  • @DonielF Of course, if the issue that caused the older post to be closed can be fixed, performing that fix would be a good thing to do, regardless of the duplication potential. If that post then gets re-opened, and if it the newer post is still a duplicate of it, then it could then be worthwhile to close the new post as a duplicate of the old.
    – Isaac Moses Mod
    Jun 11, 2019 at 14:14

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