For quite some time, I was in favor of this general reference reason. However, some events and related discussion on scifi changed my mind on it. I still think some questions on SO deserve it, but I now agree that it is likely to be ... misapplied. Instead of closing a question as general reference, answer the question once, which, if it is indeed general reference, ought to be trivial, and you have your "general reference" which you can close (relevant) future questions as a dupe of 'til the end of time. This has the distinct advantage that the canonical answer/general reference is entirely on the same SE site. This has always been a concern, and is why we encourage users not to just post a link, but give at least a summary of the linked information - so that in case of link rot, the answer is still useful.