@MartinSleziak In that case, Jack's point is more off-base than I thought it was.

I don't really follow what you're trying to say.

@MartinSleziak My understanding of Jack's argument is that keeping the duplicate post helps search, as the problem is slightly different. This appears not to be the case, so there is even less reason to keep it around.

I thought that you were saying that the problem is that user asking about $x^2+35=7^n$ will not find $x^2+3=3^n$ and vice versa.

Arg... text such an inconvenient form of communication. Don't worry about it. I was unclear, but it isn't an important enough point to clarify.

@XanderHenderson To be honest, I still don't really understand what you are trying to say and what you meant by "search don't see mathematical structure". In any case, it is past 1 am in my part of the words, I should try to get some sleep.

@MartinSleziak My argument was that search doesn't see the structure, so if one proposes that a particular problem should be kept for searchability, then all similar problems should be kept too (at least, if one wants to be consistent). I was attempting to point out how silly this would be.

On the other hand, as you pointed out, I was wrong.

But, as I said, Approach0 search sees the structure. (To some extent.)

Yes, I just said that...

Since Approach0 sees the structure, the argument against duplication is even stronger---we don't need different versions of the same question to get good results.

But we need to keep at least one, so that it is in the results, right?

Yes, but no one was proposing to delete the dupe target; only the duplicate question.

Well, in the particular case, it's not clear whether it is really a duplicate. And the chosen duplicate target does not contain equation of the form $x^2+a=b^n$ (where a,b, are some numbers), so it won't be among the search results in Approach0.

@MartinSleziak Of course we can edit the (abstract) dupe target as need be to make it more easily locatable. But 99.99% of askers never search anyhow.

Another high-level-psq: math.stackexchange.com/questions/3457635/…

Well, as I said, I am not really sure this particular pair of questions should actually a dupe - but there are wiser people than me who can judge this.

See you later!

@MartinSleziak I'm interested to learn why you lean that way.

duplicates 3457948: Prove that $(m,n)(n,k)(m,n)[m,n,k]^2=[m,n][m,k][k,n](m,n,k)^2$ seems to be a duplicate of 853771: Identity involving LCM and GCD. (I have already edited the title of the latter, so that it is easier to find in the future.)

As I have posted an answer there, I probably shouldn't vote to close as duplicate. (I should have searched a bit more before answering.)

I should explicitly say that I have no problem if my answer is deleted - especially if the post is indeed closed as a duplicate (which seems very likely). But at least for some time (and also until the question is actually closed), I will leave it undeleted.

@XanderHenderson It's basic group theory, not even "high-level"... But of course, I know what you meant. =)

<sarcasm> And look, there is one user who rewards lousy questions so that this site can become Yahoo Answers 2.0. </sarcasm>

@user21820 It is not precalculus or calculus.

By the standards of PSQs, it is high level.

@XanderHenderson @user21820 From our CoC "Be inclusive and respectful. Avoid sarcasm and be careful with jokes". I think it very important that high rep and active users promote these values among the community "that is rooted in kindness, collaboration, and mutual respect".

@user Is there a particular reason that you are pinging me?

@XanderHenderson Yes there is, notably to invite you to not take part in such kind of not proper actions but flagging them when needed. I'm not checking all the thread but often here on CRUDE I read clear vilations of our CoC. That's not good. It should be avoided. All of us must remember that.

@user I don't respect cheaters. Do you? If your answer is not "no", I am not interested in any further discussion.

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Bad keyword with email in answer, potentially bad keyword in answer (86): proof of Slater's condition and strong duality when $\mathrm{relint}\:\mathcal D\ne\mathrm{int}\:\mathcal D$ by Yunfei on math.SE

@user21820 We don't need cheaters nor judges here on MSE. We only need to follow some basic common rules even with different points of views. Nothing personal with you pinged, I'm just inviting all the users of this and others chat rooms to self regulate ourself, I'm not flagging indeed. Thanks

@user It seems that you are accusing me of something. If that is the case, please be more direct.

Otherwise, please don't ping me.

@XanderHenderson Sorry if I gave that impression, it was not my intention. I've also pinged you only because you were involved in the sarcastic thread. My aim was only to invite any users to follow as much as possible the principles of our CoC.

@user Since you did not answer my question (do you respect cheaters?), please stop pinging me henceforth. Also, please change your username so that other users whose username starts with "user" do not get pinged by every message that goes to you. It is annoying and one might even suspect you did it on purpose.

I do not want to veer away from topic in the room - which is why I mentioned it elsewhere and we can continue there chat.stackexchange.com/transcript/64952/2019/12/1 - but my impression from what I read on Meta Stack Exchange was that this does not happen if somebody uses an exact username.

@user Which sarcastic thread? Again, be direct.

cv-pls real-analysis This is a clear duplicate. In Cantor's diagonal argument how to interpret the precedence of comparing sets?‭ - Xaqron‭ 2019-11-29 16:56:25Z

[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Few unique characters in body (94): ....................................................... ✏️ by Lairon on math.SE

@Jack There are tons of questions depending on parameters (modular inverses, bezout identities, etc) that we close as abstract dupes. Having a huge number of special cases with a huge number of dupe answers greatly complicates organizing and assessing the answers and guiding students to the most insightful answers. The point about searching is moot point because 99.99% of askers never search. Rather, we end up searching (for dupes), and that is complicated when the dupes aren't deleted.