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Recently I discovered that a new bang had been added to DuckDuckGo, and I was curious about how long the new bang has been around. A Google search led me to this question:

Is there a way to get the overall list of all DuckDuckGo Bangs, together with the categories and history of each bang being introduced or modified?

For some reason, it was closed as a duplicate of another question that only asked for a list of bangs, not a list of bangs with categories and history. So I flagged it as "in need of moderator intervention" (apologies if that link doesn't work; I couldn't figure out how to get a public link to the flag):

This question should be reopened because it is not a duplicate of the linked question. That question only asks for a list of bangs, whereas this one asks for a list of bangs with history.

The flag was marked as "helpful" with this note:

Please suggest an edit indicating that the duplicate does not answer the history portion and the question will be pulled into the Reopen queue

So I suggested an edit with the comment "added note about why this question is not a duplicate", in which I added this paragraph to the end of the question:

The question Comprehensive list of all available !bangs on DuckDuckGo.com is similar to this one, but while that question only asks for a list of bangs, this question is asking for a list of bangs with history and categories.

To my surprise, the edit was rejected by two users with this reason:

This edit was intended to address the author of the post and makes no sense as an edit. It should have been written as a comment or an answer.

I tried to follow the instructions given in response to the flag that I raised, but I guess the exact edit that I made wasn't what I was supposed to do. What was incorrect about the edit that I made, and how should I have properly edited the question to indicate that it is not a duplicate?

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    I was the one that encouraged you to make the edit, so I sincerely apologize for the response you received. I should have left a comment on the question indicating my position. You did absolutely nothing wrong.
    – jonsca
    Jul 20, 2016 at 22:06
  • @jonsca Thank you. I was just a bit confused, but it looks like this meta discussion has cleared up the issue, so it seems that the system is working well! :)
    – Sam Estep
    Jul 20, 2016 at 22:48

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Your edit summary could have been a bit more detailed, but I think those two reviewers were incorrect.

We often guide people how to indicate that a question isn't a duplicate to another, and part of that guidance is to edit the marked duplicate explaining how it's not a duplicate with a link to what it's supposedly a duplicate of.

Such is the risk of a community-moderated site. Occasionally the hive-mind gets it wrong.

I've edited your change into the question.

Now, whether that convinces others enough to cast re-open votes is a different matter.

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  • Thank you! I'm glad to know that I was on the right track. By the way, it looks like you might have accidentally added the same paragraph twice in your edit.
    – Sam Estep
    Jul 20, 2016 at 13:47
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    Do note that this is my opinion, not official policy.
    – ale
    Jul 20, 2016 at 13:49
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    Of course. I was just unsure of whether or not I was doing something blatantly wrong, but now I have some indication that I probably wasn't.
    – Sam Estep
    Jul 20, 2016 at 13:53

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