@MichaelAlbanese Certainly not, as you can see here: Original post marked as duplicate

More important factors are quality of the question and quality of the answers.

The questions from the above comment are: Fundamental group of $S^2\cup\{xyz = 0\}$ and Help finding the fundamental group of $S^2 \cup \{xyz=0\}$

@MichaelAlbanese I think that maybe in this case the question could be even merged. (Probably the comments from the newer question should not be transferred to the older one - they would not make sense. But the answer would be valid for the older question, too. (The notation is in both cases the same.)

@DanielFischer What do you think about the pair of posts mentioned by Michael Albanese?

Definitely duplicates. I don't think merging is a good option here. Merging the older question into the newer definitely doesn't work since John Hughes' answer refers to the start the OP made in the older question, of which there is no trace in the newer question. Merging the new question into the older wouldn't break things like that, but of course Michael's answer doesn't refer to the idea in the older question, and that would look not so good.

@DanielFischer I certainly agree that JH's answer would not make sense for the newer question. That's why I suggested the direction newer $\to$ older.

The OP of the older question did not specify that they want exactly their approach.

But you have certainly more experience with merging. (Since you are a mod, you deal with merge requests on a regular basis.)

@DanielFischer If not merging, which to choose as duplicate target. It seems that in the older one the OP showed more effort.

I would not be surprised if some of more trigger-happy users voted to close the newer question for lack of context.

@MartinSleziak To be honest, the vast majority of merge requests are made by you. Nobody else does nearly as much work trying to get the site in order.

Anyway, in this case, duplicate newer $\to$ older. Or are there some factors which would suggest other direction?

@MartinSleziak The older question got only 97 views in nearly one and a half years, the newer question got 57 views in a little less than two days. But most questions get most of their views on the first day, so that's not saying much. Since there are no big reasons to close the older as duplicate of the newer, I'd agree, we close the newer.

@MichaelAlbanese As you can see the newer question has been closed.

@DanielFischer I am not very glad to hear this. (I hoped that other users consider collecting relevant content in one place - using duplicates and in some case even merging - a good thing, too.)

My suggestions for merging are not that much about order on the site - closing as a duplicates would be enough to do that. But if a question has some nice answers, I'd prefer to see them in the question which remains open - since they are probably more visible there.

If my requests for merging are becoming too obnoxious for the mods, I can try to do them less frequently. (Anyway, it seems like I will be busy in work during the next month - or maybe longer - so it's likely that I'll scale down my participation here a bit. But - well - it's rather addictive.)

@MartinSleziak Lots of users consider that a good thing. But most do that from an onlooker perspective.

I have added comment linking to the newer question here. If somebody stumbles upon the older one, the newer might of interest for them, too.

And perhaps if it is both in a comment and among linked questions, it increases the chance that it is noticed.

@MartinSleziak No, discouraging you from participating in cleaning up is about the last thing we want.

Ok, I am glad to hear that.

I put the duplicates also in my "manifesto" or how should I call it: "I think finding duplicates and closing questions as duplicates is useful. If caught early, this prevents answerers from redoing the work which has already been done. But even after answering, closing duplicates helps to concentrate the relevant information in one place rather than scattered in various post. And it also directs the users who found one of..."

Pity one can't upvote profiles :(

Anyway, thanks for the help with the duplicates. I should probably get back to deciding which problems to put into test for the exam.