[bhandziuk]

It's a hard balance. New users are probably already at the end of their rope when they decide they need to actually ask a question. They often aren't aware that their question was already asked because they don't have the words or experience to sufficiently describe their problem. Then someone points that out which they need to do if there's going to be any order or cleanliness on SO. I think the original askers don't receive that very well because it's often pointed out by some automated looking message like "your question is a duplicate and is closed".

Everybody is trying to do their best but the new askers don't have the experience to not ask their question and the experienced SO users have seen that question asked a dozen times already.