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...

http://programmers.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.

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.