How to behave when you have a tag gold badge regarding closing questions?

Question

I recently earned the magento2 gold badge and I've noticed that it comes with a new privilege which is that you can single-handedly mark magento2 question as duplicates.

However, to me it seems like this is quite a huge privilege and I'd rather participate with the rest of the community to mark questions as duplicates.

So, how do you behave when closing duplicates questions ? Do you skip the closing vote ? Do you only close the question when you're 100% sure this is a duplicate ?

I reckon Marius could help me here as he's the only other person with gold tag badges here.

Answer 1

I've never got the chance to use my privilege to close duplicate questions because I got the privilege to close all questions single-handedly before I got my first gold tag badge.
But since then I'm a bit more careful on what I close.
I rarely touch the close review queue (except for MSD events) and when I do, I close only questions that are obviously bad or the ones where I have the 5th vote. So it will make my vote a regular one.

But the way you use this new super-power is up to you.
With great power comes great responsibility and great abuse.
You can go on a closing rampage, but that won't be very ethical.
Or you can close, as you say, the questions that are clearly duplicates. If you have doubts you may let other people take the decision.
It's all up to you.
But you also have to keep in mind that what can be closed can be opened again. So don't be afraid to make a mistake. Just don't make too many.

Answer 2

Maybe an answer from an unexpected person, but with my participation here on Magento SE, I have also got interested in the Stack Exchange platform in general and have read about lots of things involved in it's system.

The thing (privilege) you are wielding is called a "dupe hammer" and indeed it comes with any gold tag badge and gives you the privilege of single handedly close ("hammer") questions as duplicate ("dupe") that have been tagged with that tag.

You are not the first with questions on the why, what and how of dupe hammering. If you'd look at all the questions on SE Meta or SO Meta, you'll see that it comes with great responsibility ;): closing by accident, discussions about it's power etc...

I think it is great that people who have shown proven expertise in a certain topic get additional moderator like privileges. Raphael, I wish you great fun, good luck and above all much wisdom in using your "dupe hammer" :P