Multiple indirection in closed duplicates and transitivity of duplicates

Question

I find it hilarious that this question was closed as a duplicate of a question which is in turn a duplicate of a question closed as off-topic!

I realize questions may be closed at any time, not only when the first question in the chain was closed as duplicate, but this is not the case in my example.

When finding dupes, shouldn't we make an effort to either

• Choose one that is not closed itself, or if not possible
• Go to the root cause and use it as the close reason? (In this case: off-topicness).

I also think, in this particular case, the question at the leaf -- vague question about productivity in the workplace and rightfully closed as off-topic -- is different to the original question, which was specifically about earmuffs.

"Duplicate of" should be a transitive property (if A is a dupe of B, and B is a dupe of C, then A must be a dupe of C), otherwise we are using it wrong!

Answer 1

I agree with you that it is silly to have a string of duplicates ultimately leading to something offtopic. That doesn't do the user any services by looking at it and thinking

Well these kinds of questions are okay here, but this one just so happens to have been asked before.

Keep in mind that things like this do sometimes happen as a function over time. Sometimes a question can be duplicate to another, only for the original to be later closed as Off Topic. It is not just the moderators closing things, higher reputation users have the ability to close vote as well.

This question...

https://softwareengineering.stackexchange.com/questions/195351/using-industrial-earmuffs-while-programming-to-filter-out-talking

I reopened and closed as Off Topic as I felt it was slightly different but still does not exclusively apply to the realm of software development.

The other duplicate I merged into the original offtopic question as they were essentially exactly the same.

Answer 2

"Duplicate of" should be a transitive property (if A is a dupe of B, and B is a dupe of C, then A must be a dupe of C)

Assumption of transitivity looks wrong; per my reading of the definition in duplicate-questions tag wiki, it is not required:

we want to tell the user ...something like, “Somebody already asked this. If that other question doesn't solve your problem, please clarify your question to explain how it's different.” Perfect: if the other question helps them, they're happy because they got an answer. If the other question doesn't help them, they know exactly what to do. No argument about how exact an "exact duplicate" needs to be...

Question A having an answer in B does not automatically guarantee that it also has an answer in C, even though question B may have its answer in C.

For a simplified example, imagine "chain of duplicates" like as follows:

• A: How do I see result of multiplying 2 by 2?

  • B: How do I multiply?
    answer:
    You invoke multiply method of arith package. In order to view result, you invoke method of display package.

    • C: How do I do arithmetic operations?
      answer:
      You invoke appropriate method of arith package, like multiply, divide etc.

It's easy to imagine readers being satisfied by closures A -> B and B -> C since answers given solve the problems asked about.

However, closure A -> C would be problematic: first question asks about how to display results, while answer in the second question says nothing about this.

^{Note how question in B does not ask about displaying results, making dupe closure look reasonable. Also note how answer in B provides guidance beyond its scope, along with addressing the question asked.}

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For a more realistic example, refer to the non-transitive chain of duplicates at Meta Stack Overflow:

• A': Spiteful downvoting? Two fast DVs to my unrelated posts

  • B': What can I do if I'm the victim of serial downvoting?

    • C': What is serial voting and how does it affect me?

A' is closed as a duplicate of B', which is in turn closed as a duplicate of C'.

If you take a closer look at revisions history and comments, you will notice that initial closure has been changed from A' -> C' to narrower one, A' -> B' because readers disagreed that widest dupe target has answers relevant to the question asked in A'.