Hello, I have only been on this site for less than a week and have a few questions.  My first question concerns duplicate threads.  I have been reading some threads lately and some of them are kinda marked within as a duplicate (someone catches it and politely links the thread and asks for the one to be closed.  I just want to prevent myself from duplicating a thread and was wondering what the best way to go about that is.  Does anybody have a proven or reliable method for checking, or does this matter require searching the threads.  Should this search be limited?  I have noticed that most threads are marked "off" and have many pages.

As for your first question...I do not know any proven reliable way to find if your thread is a duplicate of another. I do not worry much about it myself. And most of my threads have been fine. The only way that I can think of is to check the area that the thread would best go in. If you find one that is like your thread but is off. Do not worry about it. That thread was closed by the mods, either because they felt it was useless, or it expired--went too long without a reply. Other than that, I would not worry. I you make a dupe, it really is not a huge deal, but I would not go around trying to make dupes. Welcome to vizzed, and I hope to hear more from you!

FaithFighter :   Thank you for clearing that up for me.  It was pretty much what I figured.  Now I know, and knowing is half the battle.

No problem! I am no elite on this site, but I am glad that I was able to help you out on that. Indeed, knowledge can be a powerful weapon!

Most of the closed threads are not closed by mods, rather, they just close by themselves due to not being active for a set number of months. David made it that way so that people won't go around bumping really old threads specially during the posting competition months.

As for duplication, as what FightFighter said, don't go around trying to make duplicates of opened or active threads. However, it's also not of a big deal if you've made one "accidentally" once in a awhile.

One good way to check for duplicates is to search for some keywords with 'vizzed' on google. For example, you want to make a thread about which 1st gen starter pokemon is the best, then you type '1st gen starter pokemon vizzed' on google. Find the latest thread on the list that has the similar topic to your question. If that latest one is already closed, feel free to make your thread. Usually, we don't really care much if you've made a duplicate of a closed thread, given that it was closed due to inactivity.

Juliet :   Thanks for backing up the information FaithFighter provided and for adding an additional avenue of research.  I will try that before posting if I think I might be making a duplicate thread.