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My question is quite specific: This 2010 question received a seemingly correct answer, but recently it was noticed that the answer is wrong in the sense that it just links to the paper that doesn't really contain a proof. To the new question an excellent answer was given, which shows that quite likely there's an error in the paper. What should be done about this and by who?

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If the questions are completely duplicate, i.e. an answer to one would be an answer to the other one then one should be close as a duplicate of the other one. The general practice to close the newer one as a duplicate of the older one.

In this case, it seems that the old one has an accepted wrong answer. Note that moderators can merge questions which would redirect the new question to the old one and move all the answers to the new question to the old question.

Ideally the author of the old question should accept the new correct answer but that is up to the author, we cannot enforce that.

I would suggest flagging the new question for moderator attention and then explaining the situation and they can decide if it is really an exact duplicate and if so merge the questions.

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  • $\begingroup$ The problem is that the newer question gives more explanations why the two classes seem to differ, so it wouldn't be fair to simply close it as duplicate. It would make more sense to close the old question, but I don't know on what grounds this could be done. $\endgroup$
    – domotorp
    Mar 29, 2017 at 6:17
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    $\begingroup$ You can add the content to the old question. $\endgroup$
    – Kaveh
    Mar 29, 2017 at 6:58
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    $\begingroup$ I think that asking a good question is an achievement (that's why it's awarded reputation points on the site), so we should not take it away from the person who asked the second question. $\endgroup$
    – domotorp
    Mar 29, 2017 at 11:12
  • $\begingroup$ we don't want duplicate questions, the right thing to do imo was for the op to put a bounty on the original question or edit it, not post a second duplicate question. in short, improve the existing question in place of posting duplicates.. $\endgroup$
    – Kaveh
    Mar 29, 2017 at 12:04
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    $\begingroup$ Yes, I agree that a bounty would have been a good solution, but that's not how it has happened. Also, bounties disappear, so if later someone wants to cite that "as XY noticed", then it's quite hard to refer to some text hidden in a bounty. $\endgroup$
    – domotorp
    Mar 29, 2017 at 12:11

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