The appropriate thing to do with repetitive, boring novice questions is to close them as a duplicate of the appropriate canonical question. If we are lacking a sufficient canonical Q&A, we need to make one (which shouldn't be hard, right?). We do, however, have a problem in that the canonical questions are not visible during the close process, and you have to do some extra stuff to find them.

It is infinitely better to close novice questions as duplicates than as off-topic, certainly.

It would be better if the close reason was like this:

Questions must be relevant to professional system administration. Server Fault is a site dedicated to professional system and network administrators; questions by end users or enthusiasts are off-topic (you should contact your system administrator, or hire a professional to help you out). Questions about home environments are off-topic, but can often be asked at Super User. Please see the Help Center for more information on topicality.

I think it's quite fair to use this as a close reason for questions about home labs (or just consumer stuff being used at home) in cases where migrating that question is inappropriate. It's not rude. Our rejection rate for questions sent over to SU is only 7%, which is not bad, but it would be unfortunate if we increased it by migrating junk there which we previously would have closed with this reason.

The appropriate thing to do with repetitive, boring novice questions is to close them as a duplicate of the appropriate canonical question. If we are lacking a sufficient canonical Q&A, we need to make one (which shouldn't be hard, right?). We do, however, have a problem in that the canonical questions are not visible during the close process, and you have to do some extra stuff to find them.

It is infinitely better to close novice questions as duplicates than as off-topic, certainly.

It would be better if the close reason was like this:

Questions must be relevant to professional system administration. Server Fault is a site dedicated to professional system and network administrators; questions by end users or enthusiasts are off-topic (you should contact your system administrator, or hire a professional to help you out). Questions about home environments are off-topic, but can often be asked at Super User. Please see the Help Center for more information on topicality.

I think it's quite fair to use this as a close reason for questions about home labs (or just consumer stuff being used at home) in cases where migrating that question is inappropriate. It's not rude. Our rejection rate for questions sent over to SU is only 7%, which is not bad, but it would be unfortunate if we increased it by migrating junk there which we previously would have closed with this reason.