What should be our standard for closing identification-request questions as duplicates?

Question

This question is motivated by the following three questions:

• (A) Lawyer sacrifices life for his activist friend by taking his place in prison
• (B) Can't remember book title: a journalist converses with a death row convict
• (C) What is this famous ending of a poem/speech?

Question A is the oldest, with a detailed description and a confirmed answer. Question B has a similar description to A, although less detailed, and the same answer has been suggested but not confirmed. Question C has a confirmed answer which is the same as A, but the description is totally different, with different details of the same book being remembered.

Currently, question B has three votes to close it as a duplicate of A, while question C has none. This inspired me to post a meta and start a general (i.e. not just about these particular questions!) discussion about closing identification questions as duplicates.

Should we create a clear policy on when to close ID questions as duplicates?

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For the record, so far we have four questions with the identification-request tag that are closed as duplicates:

1. Book about a boy surviving in a forest with animal friends Answer given but not confirmed; dupe target has an accepted answer. Both questions have similar descriptions.

2. Trilogy of books involving a man's journey through ritual magic Question was inspired by the dupe target; the OP of the duplicate answered both questions after realising they were about the same story, and closed his own question himself.

3. Book about a boy who leaves his village and goes to a large city. The cover shows two men having a discussion at the foot of Bruegel's Tower of Babel The OP posted the same question on two different SE sites; the SFF version was migrated here and closed as a duplicate of the original Lit version.

4. Short story about a young boy living in South Africa during Apartheid Answer given but not confirmed; dupe target (which is actually newer) has an accepted answer. Both questions have similar descriptions and the answers seem clearly correct.

Answer 1

In an identification question, the asker presents some remembered details about a work of literature, and the answerer proposes an identification for the work, and (ideally) presents evidence that that the work matches the remembered details (allowing for ordinary errors of recall).

This means that an identification question should be closed as a duplicate only if the remembered details are substantially overlapping (again, allowing for errors of recall), so that an answer to one equally answers the other.

In the examples given above, question C, which asks for the source of a famous quotation with a high-sounding tone, possibly containing the words “a fine thing”, is not answered by answer A, which identifies a work in which “a lawyer sacrifices his life for his activist friend by taking his place in prison”. Even though the work is the same, the questions have no overlap.

However, question B, which asks for a work in which “a journalist takes the place of an inmate on death row” does seem to be answered by answer A, as the misremembering of a lawyer as a journalist is well within the usual scope of errors of recall. (Compare this question, in which a prison chaplain was also misremembered as a journalist.) So it is reasonable (but not necessary) to close this as a duplicate without waiting for the OP to return to confirm the identification.

Answer 2

I think that if the details furnished are different enough such that when someone who does not know the sought-after text does not realize upon reading the questions that they in fact are seeking the same work, then it's fine to leave both questions open.

If the details suggest that the question refers to the same work as another question which has an accepted answer, then the question with no accepted answer yet should be closed, with a comment to the OP that if that book isn't the correct one, the OP can edit the question to specify some differences (e.g., "that book has a 40 year old female protagonist, is in Tamil, and is set in France, the one I read had a 15 year old male protagonist, was in Hungarian, and was set in Timor-Leste"). That would cause the question to be reopened when the OP takes action.

That leaves the tricky situation of there being two questions, both open, with substantial similarities in the details of the book. I'd argue that the later question should be closed with a comment to roughly the same effect as above: "is this the same book?" If the later question has some details that are not in the earlier question, then the OP of the earlier question can be asked to verify and incorporate those details, perhaps?

My understanding is that rep gained by votes on closed questions/answers isn't lost; all that happens is that existing answers can't be accepted, and no new answers can be added. Is that correct? If so, closing the duplicates doesn't cause any harm.

Answer 3

Identification questions should only be closed as duplicates once there is confirmation from the asking user that a proper identification has been made. This can come in a couple ways:

1. Q1 and Q2 have the same accepted answer.
2. The asking user leaves a comment confirming it is what they were looking for. This can be on a posted answer or as a reply to a comment suggesting the answer has been given elsewhere.
3. Exception, the same user creates another question looking for the same identification.

I understand that this can leave questions open that appear to be looking for the same work, especially if both identification questions are well written and therefore have many of the same details. However, the only way we can know with 100% certainty is with confirmation from the asker.

As to which question should be left open and which should be closed... Typically the oldest question is the one that remains open as this there is no contention. Sometimes a question or answer with greater detail can usurp an older post but this can be subjective.