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The faq says this:

When a question reaches 5 close votes, it is marked as closed, and will no longer accept answers. Closed questions may be opened by casting reopen votes in the same manner. However, you may only vote to close or reopen a question once.

So I would figure that it takes five users to close a question like this one, but it only lists two.

Now this one took five before it was closed.

What is the difference between these two questions and why does a question close after less than five votes sometimes?

1 Answer 1

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Moderators (currently me, Caleb, waxeagle, and Mason Wheeler) have "super-votes". That is, if we vote to close a question, it gets closed immediately. This super-vote of ours actually modifies our inclination to close a question by making us less likely to cast a close vote. For a regular member, if they're not entirely sure that a question should be closed, they can still cast a close vote and it'll take four others to agree. With us mods, if we're not sure and we close a question, we can (and have, and will) take flak for it. Hence, we close only when we're sure, or when we'd be the fifth vote. The majority of the time, we prefer to let the community close the question themselves.

Either way, it takes five reopen votes to open a question (and mods have the super-vote there as well).

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  • Oh. Does the limit of being able to vote only once also apply to mods?
    – user3961
    Commented Mar 3, 2013 at 3:20
  • No it does not.
    – wax eagle Mod
    Commented Mar 3, 2013 at 3:32
  • still takes 5 to reopen a question. Unless a mod does it.
    – wax eagle Mod
    Commented Mar 3, 2013 at 3:33
  • @waxeagle What is the rep threshold that gives this privilege?
    – user3961
    Commented Mar 3, 2013 at 3:36
  • @fredsbend what privilege? closing and reopening? That's 500. Moderators are either appointed or elected. For now all of the moderators have been appointed by SEI, when we graduate we will hold an election. The minimum rep threshold to run in the election will be 300.
    – wax eagle Mod
    Commented Mar 3, 2013 at 3:40
  • @waxeagle I had no idea about mods being appointed or elected. I thought all privileges were rep based. This is leading into other questions. Is there another post somewhere that details the graduation process and what exactly happens? I guess that is supposed to be happening for this site soon right?
    – user3961
    Commented Mar 3, 2013 at 3:44
  • @fredsbend there are several. but here is one from the SEI blog. blog.stackoverflow.com/2010/10/when-will-my-site-graduate
    – wax eagle Mod
    Commented Mar 3, 2013 at 3:46

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