Overzealous moderators should be kept from placing unrelated "may already have an answer" banners

Question

Overzealous and reputation-hungry moderators should be kept from placing unrelated "may already have an answer" banners within the first 24 hours of asking a question.

Placing such banners within minutes of asking a question chase away possible interesting respondents. The same holds true for "possible duplicate" comments.

Moreover, moderators seem to only skim questions for trigger words without carefully reading the subtle differences between a question and possible duplicate questions.

Here is an example: How can I get a list of all packages in a repository section from command line?

Answer 1

Neither the comment, nor the banner were placed by a moderator.

A random user misunderstood your question and voted to close your question as a duplicate. The system has that user add a comment with a link to the question. The system also adds a banner at the top for you (only you can see it) so that you don't miss it. That doesn't mean it is correct, it is only there to make sure you don't miss it. Believe it or not, some users do.

Since the question is obviously not a duplicate it should get shot down in review.

There is absolutely zero reason to get so protective.

Answer 2

If you think a question was wrongfully tagged as duplicate, you can flag it. You can visit the chat room and chat about it, or just post a meta question here.

It's not necessarily moderators that mark questions as duplicates. It's the whole community (Well people with 3k+ rep anyway). There really is no need to call moderators names. Different people just may have different opinions about stuff, it's Human.

Also, everyone is a volunteer (even moderators!), nobody is getting paid, and everyone is using their own free time to help others out.

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That aside, in your example, that banner is only visible to YOU (maybe also for high rep users). Someone has flagged your question as a duplicate of a question. The flag hasn't been approved yet.

Once a question is flagged as duplicated, it goes into the Close Votes queue. Users with 3k+ reputation, will need to go through the queue and vote. Once 5 people approve the flag (or one moderator), then your question becomes officially duplicated.

You can add a comment to your question, explaning why the question is not duplicate, if users agree, they would deny the flag, and the banner will be removed.

Answer 3

Solution

The banner text:

This question may already have an answer here:...

should read:

Your question may already have an answer here:...

Please, be sure not to post duplicate questions.

to prevent outcries like mine. (With my sincere apologies to the moderators.) Doing so, will insinuate to the original poster that this banner is only visible to him/her.

Please remember, users below the 3k reputation mark are completely blind to the review process. This is also evidenced here.