alt Hacker NewsSometimes your question was simply visually similar to another but conceptually very different, and it'd get closed for being a duplicate anyway.
Then you have to re-ask it, now with a couple extra disclaimers spelling out that indeed you did use the search function but no, the other visually similar question isn't actually the same as yours.
Then you'd get maybe 2 comments and -2 in downvotes.
Replies
Sometimes you'd get banned for asking an exact duplicate of a previous question of yours that was closed. They'd tell you to edit the closed question and it would be reopened.
But if you'd edited the closed question instead, it wouldn't be reopened.
Sometimes? It happened more and more and when every second question was like this, I left. I wasn't going to fight against moderators forever.
That was before AI.
And your second attempt would get closed as a duplicate of your first attempt.
The only time I asked a question on stack overflow I took a very long time crafting it, and was immediately closed as a "duplicate" of something that it clearly wasn't a duplicate of. Tried explaining how it wasn't a duplicate and got closed again. Never bothered trying to ask a question there again. The amount of effort I had put into being a good asker was completely wasted on someone who seemingly didn't even read my query before eagerly shutting it down.