No, in my opinion, closing as a duplicate of that question is not appropriate. It is common, but I don't think it is the right way to respond to such questions. In my opinion, the correct action is to vote to close the question or to downvote it.

I can't see the specific question you are referring to (it is now deleted), but I have a hypothesis about why this might be so common. I think many users have grown frustrated with certain types of low-quality questions (e.g., questions that basically want us to debug or review their code), and don't feel like they have adequate tools to address the problems those questions bring.

Downvoting isn't always effective. It takes five people to vote to close a question. In contrast, if you have a gold badge in the appropriate tag, one person can vote to close as a duplicate on their own. So, it is possible that some people might be using their ability to close with a single vote. It's not quite what they are supposed to do, but then people aren't supposed to ask low-quality questions, either, so it's less than ideal all around.

No, in my opinion, closing as a duplicate of that question is not appropriate. It is common, but I don't think it is the right way to respond to such questions. In my opinion, the correct action is to vote to close the question or to downvote it.

I can't see the specific question you are referring to (it is now deleted), but I have a hypothesis about why this might be so common. I think many users have grown frustrated with certain types of low-quality questions (e.g., questions that basically want us to debug or review their code), and don't feel like they have adequate tools to address the problems those questions bring.

Downvoting isn't always effective. It takes three people to vote to close a question. In contrast, if you have a gold badge in the appropriate tag, one person can vote to close as a duplicate on their own. So, it is possible that some people might be using their ability to close with a single vote. It's not quite what they are supposed to do, but then people aren't supposed to ask low-quality questions, either, so it's less than ideal all around.

No, in my opinion, closing as a dup of that question is not appropriate. It is common, but I don't think it is the right way to respond to such questions. In my opinion, the correct action is to vote to close the question or to downvote it.

I can't see the specific question you are referring to (it is now deleted), but I have a hypothesis about why this might be so common. I think many users have grown frustrated with certain types of low-quality questions (e.g., questions that basically us to debug or review their code), and don't feel like they have adequate tools to address the problems those questions bring. Downvoting isn't always effective. It takes 5 people to vote to close a question. In contrast, if you have a gold badge in the appropriate tag, one person can vote to close as a duplicate on their own. So, it is possible that some people might be using their ability to close with a single vote. It's not quite what they are supposed to do, but then people aren't supposed to ask low-quality questions, either, so it's less than ideal all around.

No, in my opinion, closing as a duplicate of that question is not appropriate. It is common, but I don't think it is the right way to respond to such questions. In my opinion, the correct action is to vote to close the question or to downvote it.

I can't see the specific question you are referring to (it is now deleted), but I have a hypothesis about why this might be so common. I think many users have grown frustrated with certain types of low-quality questions (e.g., questions that basically want us to debug or review their code), and don't feel like they have adequate tools to address the problems those questions bring.

Downvoting isn't always effective. It takes five people to vote to close a question. In contrast, if you have a gold badge in the appropriate tag, one person can vote to close as a duplicate on their own. So, it is possible that some people might be using their ability to close with a single vote. It's not quite what they are supposed to do, but then people aren't supposed to ask low-quality questions, either, so it's less than ideal all around.