Is there any value to NOT deleting my own questions closed as duplicates? Does anyone benefit from me leaving these questions there dangling in infinity?
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Looking at your question history, this shouldn't be a problem, but keep in mind that you might get question banned if you have too many deleted questions.– DennisCommented Dec 2, 2012 at 17:59
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Does anyone benefit from me leaving these questions there dangling in infinity?
Yup: different people will word their searches differently. If you let the duplicate with your specific way of wording the question hang around, someone else may find it one day through Google - and consequently, the original question.
Closed duplicates are cool, because they all point to one original question in which high-quality content has accumulated over the years (well, supposedly).
Unclosed duplicates are a problem, as they are all cul-de-sacs and contain answers of varying quality, giving future generations no hint that there might be another, better answered duplicate somewhere else in the system.
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1I recognaize the cul-de-sac problem and always vote to close my own posts when they are clear duplicates. But I have always felt the urge to delete them as well. But I see your point about the "different wording" search issue. Commented Dec 2, 2012 at 17:26
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@John yeah. In the end, I'd say it depends on how "unique" your wording style is - there are questions that have so many thousands of dupes, keeping one more around doesn't really make sense because the question has already been asked in more ways than will ever be useful. But there is no need to delete your duplicates as such.– PekkaCommented Dec 2, 2012 at 17:29