When someone asks a questions on SO, they are expected to check that the question was not asked before. It is even worse if the question has been asked some 20 times before, because it shows little regard for the site.
Well what about people who would answer questions on SO? Is there any burden on them? If a question has been asked some 20 times before, should they go ahead and give the answer again (or worse copy the answer from a dup) or should they just simply go into the comments section and note that it is a duplicate? To me, answering shows just as much disregard for the site.
The problem is that a question gets closed later on for being a duplicate, but everyone who answers keeps their rep. The question and questioner are called out, but the answer givers remained unscathed.
Is there anything we can do or should do to discourage answer givers from answering obvious duplicates? Either by loss of rep for the question, or even bans for repeated behavior?
