What is the etiquette here regarding duplicate posts?

Question

I am having a problem with Powershell, so I came here as a resource to find an answer.

I discovered an existing post that is very similar to my own problem here: WinRM will NOT work, error code 2150858770

There's nothing in the thread to indicate what the fix was, if anything.

When you click 'Ask a Question' the page makes a big deal about how we should search to see if a similar question already exists, and we should follow up there rather than create a duplicate. So I was under the impression that, if I had just posted a duplicate, I would have been scolded for posting a duplicate.

So I did what I thought was the right thing, and sought clarification on the post that had similarities to my own.

I tried to leave a comment. However, I lacked the reputation to leave a comment. So I left the following answer:

Did you ever get a soultion to this? I am having the same error message when I attempt Enter-PSSession -ComputerName localhost on a Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1 64-bit host.

Apologies for posting this as an answer. I know this should be a comment, not an answer. But I've signed up to respond, and I need to have 50 reputation to comment.

My answer was deleted by Sven, with the following comment: This isn't a valid comment either. Server Fault is not a forum.

I did what I thought I had been instructed to do on the 'Ask Question' page, and I thought I was doing the right thing to avoid a scolding. But then I got scolded anyway. So now I'm completely confused.

What should I have done instead? Would a duplicate post have been okay in this circumstance?

Answer 1

You came to Server Fault with a problem regarding WinRM. You went to ask a question, and received advice to search for similar questions to see if one of them would resolve your problem. You did this, and discovered an unanswered question that appeared similar to your problem. Then you posted a comment (as an answer) asking if the problem had ever been resolved.

This last is frowned on at SF and on the rest of the network. Answers are reserved exclusively for answering the question, and comments for everything else, such as clarification. At the same time, there is a reputation requirement for comments, and we have reasons to be strict on that.

So we move on to your primary question here about duplicates.

Over the years we have noticed that many people will often face exactly the same problem. Once a solution is identified for that problem, and written in an answer here, others can read the Q&A and possibly apply it to their own situations. Many questions are never posted at all because people were able to resolve their problems by reading an existing question and answers.

But sometimes people miss the Q&A (or don't search) and will post identical or nearly identical questions. In this case the community can mark such questions as duplicates of another existing question, the poster is notified of this and can agree with the duplicate solving their problem or edit their question to show how it's different.

However, the community cannot mark questions as duplicates of another question which doesn't have an upvoted or accepted answer, like the one you reference. (A moderator can do this, but we generally do not unless the questions are identical and posted by the same person.)

In this case, if that is the only question you were able to find regarding your issue, I would expect you to post a new question, with complete details, as though the other question didn't exist. You might wish to reference the other question and note that it is unanswered, though.

P.S. I did take a look at that question, and I note that it's odd that that error number is in decimal. Microsoft usually displays its error numbers in hexadecimal. If you convert that number, it comes out as 0x80338012. Perhaps you may find something relevant if you search for that.