How to handle duplicates of duplicates?

Question

A recent question about returning to the Dark Ages reminded me of another question I remembered seeing. After some digging, I found a similar question and suggested it might be a duplicate of the OP's question.

Later, when I checked the close review queue, I noticed the Dark Ages question was being closed as a duplicate of a different question that Mołot linked and was the question I had originally been thinking of but couldn't find.

Only thing is, the question Mołot linked is marked as a duplicate of the one I linked.

Is there a general policy on whether to mark questions as duplicates of duplicates? Should we link to any question in the chain or to the root?

Answer 1

The general advice on Stack Overflow is to choose the "best one" to use as a canonical question, later duplicate questions can be merged or marked as duplicates of the canonical.

Generally the better canonical questions are a little more general so that they cover a larger portion of similar questions. As in:

How do I foo the bar?

Vs very specific questions, like:

How do I foo the bar in baz, while standing on one foot, on Friday afternoon, in Iceland?

Answer 2

Duplicates can have variations on the theme. So if you're going to chose one, chose the one that is closest to OPs question, even if the one you're choosing is a duplicate of another question that is poorer fit.