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A question I've raised is marked as a duplicate I believe the questions that it has been duplicated against is a possible answer but its not the same question. How can i contest this?

The example

Is the increase in microcephaly in brazil caused by the zika virus? has been marked as a duplicated of What is the cause of Brazil's microcephaly outbreak?. There is certainly some connection as pyripoxyfen could be a cause but there may others, or somebody could come back and say the zika is definitely the cause as shown by more research

2 Answers 2

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You can contest it in 2 ways

  1. By flagging the question, with a custom reason explaining why you dont think it is a duplicate
  2. By posting on meta, as you have here.

The former will only alert diamond mods, they may agree or disagree and reopen accordingly (or not). The latter will alert everyone who is active on meta, which may well get you the 5 reopen votes you would need.

(I have purposely not commented on whether I think your question is a duplicate or not)

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  • Whats a diamond mod?
    – user1605665
    Commented Mar 16, 2016 at 21:54
  • @user1605665 all users on this site get moderation powers as their reputation score increases -- so everyone has some moderation powers. However, there's another kind of moderators who are elected by the community and have exceptional powers. As a symbol of recognition, their username is followed by a diamod sign ("♦"). To distinguish them from high reputation users, they are usually referred to as "diamond mods". Both Jamiec and I are diamond moderators.
    – Sklivvz Mod
    Commented Mar 17, 2016 at 0:39
  • Here's a link to all the diamond mods
    – Oddthinking Mod
    Commented Mar 17, 2016 at 0:40
  • I would also suggest editing the question to make the distinction clearer, so the problem doesn't occur again.
    – Oddthinking Mod
    Commented Mar 17, 2016 at 0:41
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This is a slightly tricky one.

I think we all agree on the following:

  • There is a claim that microcephaly incidents are currently higher in Brazil.
  • There is a popular claim that the Zika virus is the cause.
  • There is an alternative claim that pyriproxyfen is the cause.

The real answer might be that Zika is the cause; that pyriproxyfen is the cause; that both are partial causes; that neither are the cause; or even that there has been no increase at all.

(I am not taking any position on the answer. I personally suspect the science isn't really in yet, and we won't have a good answer to this dilemma for months or years, but my opinion doesn't count for much.)

I think the best solution is to have one question that poses all of these questions, rather than several competing questions that will be answered with the exact same evidence. (Normally, I would argue against multiple claims in one question, but these are very closely related - the evidence for one hypothesis is the evidence against another.)

I will merge your question into the other one. There is a substantial answer there already, but I don't think it has satisfactorily addressed the claim yet.

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  • If you look through the edits here and on the question, you will see I have been consistently misspelling "microcephaly". Sorry! I will have to write it out 100 times on the blackboard so I don't get it wrong again. Thanks to the editors who have corrected me.
    – Oddthinking Mod
    Commented Mar 17, 2016 at 23:18

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