Should we ever close a question as a duplicate of another closed question?

Question

Sometimes questions get closed as duplicates of questions that are already closed. Is this something we should be doing?

The purpose (as I understand it) of duplicate closure is to make sure that a discussion of a certain topic has one place to live on the site and is not divided or duplicated in multiple places.

However, closing a question as a duplicate of another question is simply shutting down the question entirely and does not allow any options to actually engage in the question without one or the other being reopened. This seems to not match the purpose of duplicate closure to me. Obviously if the question has close-worthy issues then they should be closed accordingly, but closing a question as a duplicate of a question that was closed for issues the new one doesn't have does not seem right.

Should we ever duplicate a question to another closed question?

Please answer for cases where the new question has a closable issue and one where it doesn't (duplication aside).

See this question for an example of this happening (I ask about this question specifically in How should we sort out this question that was closed as a duplicate of another closed question?).

Answer 1

No to either case

This may just be a personal opinion, but I concur with your assessment that closing a question as a duplicate and linking back to another question shuts down the discussion without providing a means of practical recourse for the querent.

Question With Closure Reasons

For a question that has reasons for closure should be closed for those stated reasons. This gives the querent guidance on how to improve their question.

Good Question (but maybe duplicate?)

For a question that's fine on it's own, I don't think we should be marking it a duplicate if the linked question is closed. Presumably, the linked question was closed for a good reason and presumably those reasons are not applicable to the question at hand. If those two things are true, then the questions aren't actually duplicates and it was inappropriate to link them anyways.

Querent Boons and Responsibilities

The general issue with closure for duplicate is that it presumes the linked question solves the querent's problem. Many times that's true, sometimes not so much in which case some editing can help it become it's own question.

However, there's a key element to questions on SE that should be noted: querents more or less own their questions. They put in the work to make a good question and that question essentially becomes their responsibility henceforth. Meaning, they get to decide what answer solved their problem and they decide on the phrasing of their question and are absolutely justified in rolling back edits that conflict with their intent. It's not an insignificant thing. If we close a question as a duplicate and link to a closed question, we shut down the means to discuss this any further as the person whom has control of that question may or may not choose to pursue the issue sufficiently to get their question re-opened. And that effectively kills the question/answer portion of the site.

When one first starts on SE, it can be hard to ask a good question, the unspoken reward for that effort is that the querent owns that question. Duplicate links back to that question aren't bad when they're indicative that another person wondered the same thing. The duplicate link draws attention to both the new question and old one and perhaps earns the original querent a few more upvotes as thanks for helping more people by asking a good question in the first place. Linking back to a closed question breaks this sort of karmic cycle as it rewards attention to someone who presumably hasn't done sufficient work to construct an answerable question.

Answer 2

Closing a question as a duplicate of another closed question is fine when appropriate. The system enables it for a reason.

Like most aspects of moderation and curation, it's a matter of subjective case-by-case judgement. It's not something we should try to say nobody should ever do.

Consider: we can only close as dupes of questions that already have answers. Also, if this newer question is a dupe, that means it's probably the same question and will have the same problems and will get closed one way or another. What's more helpful: say “sorry, we can't answer this”, or say “sorry, we can't answer this, but here's that one time we did have some answers, so check that one out”? Closing as a dupe fulfills the second role. So does closing for the same reason as the other question, and linking to it in a comment though—use your judgement about which would work best case by case.

The querent can still work with us to get the question reopened either way, and the dupe closure prompts them to consider editing this question to show how it's different.

Please answer for cases where the new question has a closable issue and one where it doesn't (duplication aside).

If the new question doesn't have a closeable issue, then it's surely not going to be an actual duplicate of a question that was also closed. Or that means something was wrong with the closure of the older question. Or that means we've had two questions about the same topic, but the old wasn't viable and the new one is.

If that kind of situation comes up, raise it on meta please. The second case would warrant re-evaluation, the third would probably mean we should close the older, closed question as duplicate of this newer question. Diamond moderators can do that easily.

If the new question does have a closeable question, close either as a dupe or for that specific reason: use your judgement as to what's most appropriate for this specific scenario.

Answer 3

tl;dr do not close as duplicate when older post was closed for a reason.

If Duplicate Question Has Same Problems as Original

Then close for the same reason that the duplicate was closed for instead of marking as duplicate.

E.g. Original question closed as opinion based and new question has same problem.

Closing for the same reason as the duplicate does seem better in that it offers the new poster a fresh stab at solving the issue for which the older post was close.

If Duplicate Does NOT Have Same Problem as Original Question

Then do not mark as duplicate.

E.g. Original question was closed for being opinion-based, and new question is not opinion-based.

In this case, the questions are not duplicates. The new one is a sufficiently cleaned-up restatement of the first as to not have problems. Therefore, it's not sufficiently similar to be a duplicate.

I would expect a duplicate question to have the same problems as the original. If this is not the case, it's a substantially better question.

If Duplicate Question is Same as an Older Post That Did Not Have Problems.

Then mark as duplicate. Marking as duplicate is useful and directs the reader or poster to the discussion and answers.