Absolutely right. And this is also the way every other bug tracker on the planet works.

(Yes, I think SO looks like a bug tracker used as a discussion forum. They're certainly very close, including hostile project owners, WONTFIX's, etc.)

Interesting observation. Recall that Joel Spolsky got his start with FogBugz, a bug tracker. Think that might have informed the design?

That's exactly what closing duplicates does: cross references it to the original. If someone wants to post new information, they can do it on the original.

Yes, they can. But they won't. (For various reasons, but primarily because it won't get any attention. Nobody likes yelling into the void.)

An alternative to shaming is that you could just accept this great new content that a volunteer is giving you.

There is a badge for exactly that - Necromancer ( http://stackoverflow.com/help/badges/17/necromancer ): Answered a question more than 60 days later with score of 5 or more.

Whenever a question gets a new post it gets bumped up to the top of the activity again - the same amount of possible attention as when an hour old question gets a new answer too.

Yes. I shouldn't have said nobody. I actually like answering old questions, for example. I've earned that badge 10 times :)

What it really comes down to, though, is that when somebody asks a new question, I want to answer their new question, with all of its subtleties, in response to its particular phrasing, in its context.

It depends on the question. If it previously didn't have an answer or only had one, it goes to the top. If it had 5 OK answers and you add a 6th really awesome one, the ranking doesn't change much - expect it to be totally ignored.

That is not always the case. Consider http://programmers.stackexchange.com/a/263542/ in which an answer was posted three years after the question was asked and two years since the last visible answer was posted ( http://programmers.stackexchange.com/posts/65281/timeline ) and is now the second highest answer in the question. That doesn't sound like 'totally ignored'.

It does happen. In fact, I think that a couple of my best (and highest-voted) answers are necromancers. However, I should note that the question you linked has 51464 views. And a lot of the questions I've earned necromancer for were similarly well-viewed. That's not typical. Most old questions get a fraction of those views.

Edit: In fact, I should admit that I usually only put the effort into answering old questions when it's something that has a lot of views. It's an indication that the question is linked somewhere prominent or is ranking well for some search terms. Those questions are worth putting the time in for. Most aren't.

I challenge you to find a similar question on StackOverflow. On some of the other, slower StackExchange sites I can see that it might be different.

It does cross-reference them. But read the rest of my bullet points. It isn't just about cross-referencing. It's about cross-referencing in a way that encourages a vital community that resonates with SE's gamified nature by keeping the site fun for all players.

Closing with a link to the original is cross-referencing in a way that does just the opposite: It decreases the vitality of the community by taking away opportunities for newcomers to take part in the gamification feature.

Let's frame the issue another way: What's Stack Overflow really for? Is it for people to ask questions and get answers? Or is it just a gamified Wikipedia?