TFS - Link to Workitem "Duplicate" versus "Duplicate Of"

Question

In what scenario makes it sense to distinguish "Duplicate" and "Duplicate Of" as "Link type" when linking two WorkItems (WIs) in Team Foundation Server (TFS)?

How to deal with "Duplicate" relationship of more than two WIs?

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I'm aware of definition:

All two-way link types are characterized by a Forward and Reverse name, such as Parent/Child and Duplicate/Duplicate Of. Link work items to support traceability...

and technical detail that if WI#1 is linked to WI#2 as "Duplicate" then WI#2 is linked to WI#1 as "Duplicate Of". And also that changing link from "Duplicate" to "Duplicate Of" in WI#1 automatically updates link in WI#2 to "Duplicate".

I connect from VS 2015 or 2017 to TFS 2017

Answer 1

The most common usage is to track duplicate bugs, where the newest is a Duplicate Of an older. This may result in a chain of duplicate bugs that ends on the oldest work item.