5
$\begingroup$

We've had yet another reasonably-asked question closed as a duplicate of Why does gravity make everything round?

While the question in question has a somewhat reasonable title, it is framed around antigravity. The answer to the title is that gravity does not make everything round, full stop. The question does not focus on midsize objects (i.e., planets and stars) as do more reasonable questions on why some things in the universe are roundish.

That the title of the cited question is wrong (gravity does not make everything round) and that the body is very wrong ("I am studying ways to make an anti-gravity machine (!!)") suggests that the cited question should be the very last choice as the base question. (Base question: A question that asks such a centralizing question that other related questions can be closed as duplicates.)

Very few of the answers to the related questions focus on the potato radius (anything smaller is too small) or the most massive star (anything larger is too large). We finally have a question that asks about planets and stars -- and it was closed as a duplicate. This is sad.

$\endgroup$
2
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ On the SEDE I can see only a single question which is closed as the dupe of this one. (link) $\endgroup$
    – peterh
    May 23, 2018 at 22:33
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ I think we could tune the only question what this SEDE query found, reopen it, and make all the similar questions (including this terrible one) as its dupe. $\endgroup$
    – peterh
    May 24, 2018 at 8:59

1 Answer 1

2
$\begingroup$

I'd suggest the way to handle this is that the next time we get a suitable question of that type, "someone" should edit the question to include the supposed duplicate reference and an explanation of why they don't consider the new question a duplicate.

Hopefully that will stop the "close as dupe" effect, but keep in mind that the community is still entitled to close as duplicate - we can't force this issue.

terrible question

I'm sure I keep being told there are no terrible questions, and to some extent that's true. Just because a question is based on misconceptions or something like that does not make it terrible - it's an opportunity to correct misconceptions (and others may hold those misconceptions).

$\endgroup$

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .