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This SO Meta 'question' announces lowering of the close/reopen vote threshold from 5 to 3 on Stack Overflow.

The answer to a question in a comment if it applies to other SE sites is this link, but it doesn't really have the answer.

Do our moderators have more informations? Can we have a threshold of 3 votes?

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  • There are a lot of 1st time posters who may take getting their question closed the wrong way and just leave for good. I would be in favor of reducing the number of votes but only if the votes were accompanied by a (good) posted comment against the question voted to be closed. If possible, I would even favor weighting the close votes. Close votes with no attached comment = 1/5 votes needed to close. Close votes with an attached comment = 1/3 votes needed to close.
    – st2000
    Commented Dec 7, 2019 at 19:38
  • @st2000, Stack Exchange changed the 'notices' about closing reason stackoverflow.blog/2019/12/05/…
    – Juraj Mod
    Commented Dec 8, 2019 at 6:08
  • 2
    @st2000, there are never 5 close votes here on Arduino SE. usually moderator must help to close the garbage questions
    – Juraj Mod
    Commented Dec 8, 2019 at 10:23
  • I like the improvements in the linked-to stackoverflow blog. I did not see where it addresses situations where people vote to close questions with no feed back to the original poster. While I don't think it is fair to demand feed back, I do think rewarding it is fair game.
    – st2000
    Commented Dec 8, 2019 at 18:25
  • @st2000 - Every "On Hold" and "Closed" post always gave "feed back to the original poster". The wording of the reasons for on hold / closure has recently changed, and the background color changed from yellow to blue stackoverflow.blog/2019/12/05/… I believe comments are still active when a question is put on hold, and can be transferred to chat for an extended conversation. Comments / chat can be used to clarify the exact nature of the issue(s) with the question. A person voting to close can leave a comment if they choose.
    – VE7JRO
    Commented Dec 8, 2019 at 19:04
  • @VE7JRO, when will the change happen?
    – Juraj Mod
    Commented Jan 13, 2020 at 6:16
  • @Juraj - The "test" I'm told started in January, and we should hear something after the end of the month. If we haven't heard anything by the middle of February, I will contact SO. This is a feature we really need. Most people are unaware that votes to close "age away" after 5 days. Let's say we get 4 VTC on a question, a week goes by, and voila, there are 0 VTC. This aging away of votes is OK for a busy network like EE, but for us it doesn't work very well.
    – VE7JRO
    Commented Jan 13, 2020 at 15:21
  • @VE7JRO here are 4 close votes arduino.stackexchange.com/questions/71686/…
    – Juraj Mod
    Commented Jan 13, 2020 at 15:35
  • arduino.stackexchange.com/…
    – Juraj Mod
    Commented Jan 13, 2020 at 15:36
  • @VE7JRO, the "Arduino uno wifi rev2 stuck inside loop." needs guidance, not solving. the OP asked more questions with the same sketch. some of them have accepted answers
    – Juraj Mod
    Commented Jan 14, 2020 at 6:08
  • the strcpy question is extremely common. the OP didn't try to google it
    – Juraj Mod
    Commented Jan 14, 2020 at 6:10
  • @VE7JRO, something new?
    – Juraj Mod
    Commented Feb 4, 2020 at 15:10
  • I think the community here is still quite small with only 177 users having 500+ reputation so they are able to cast close votes. How many questions are in the queues? Is it too much for moderators to get involved?
    – Thomas Weller
    Commented Feb 4, 2020 at 20:54
  • @ThomasWeller - I agree. And out of the 177, very few of those users "get involved". There may be 20 regular users who participate in these "maintenance" tasks. IMHO, giving the community the ability to close questions at 3 votes, rather than 5 votes, gives them more control, not less. I am in favour of this proposed change.
    – VE7JRO
    Commented Feb 4, 2020 at 21:32
  • @ThomasWeller - There is a possibility that 3 users could join forces to abuse this new privilege (if we are approved for it). A simple flag for moderator attention by any user is all that's required to start an investigation (I sure hope users with 1 rep can flag a post). Whether 5 or 3 people voted to close a question, a single moderator vote can reopen it at any time.
    – VE7JRO
    Commented Feb 4, 2020 at 21:32

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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Some of you may have noticed the Meta Stack Exchange post - Testing three-vote close and reopen on 13 network sites (it's linked in the featured on meta sidebar) - we've finally got this project under way and Arduino is one of the sites we'll be running the test on.

Starting tomorrow, I'll be changing the site setting and closing and reopening will require only three votes. This test will run for 45 days and will be turned back to five votes to close and reopen while I review the data from the 13 sites. After we've seen the impact, I'll be posting results and, if there aren't negative impacts, we will change the setting to three permanently.

A few weeks into this, I'll be posting a question here on meta to ask for your thoughts about this change, so you will have an opportunity to discuss the impact.

Thank you so much for your patience while we got this prioritized and scheduled. There's a lot more information in the MSE post, so please review it.

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  • yes I noticed it. thank you. I am curios for the outcome of the test, because now we have more users with close voting privllege than year and a half back when I opened this
    – Juraj Mod
    Commented May 6, 2021 at 5:03
  • It's good that y'all have more people with the privilege but I based this decision on your recent activity and y'all are handling less than half the questions that are flagged for closure - now, that could be because there's no one reviewing or because people are skipping a lot because they're not sure how to handle certain questions or any number of other things, so I'm hoping to capture some of that at the mid-test feedback opportunity.
    – Catija
    Commented May 6, 2021 at 13:56
  • back then it was completely hopeless to close a question without moderator :-)
    – Juraj Mod
    Commented May 6, 2021 at 15:32
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I have some information regarding the process of changing the "close/reopen vote threshold".

  • We need a question on our meta site that discusses the merits of changing the required number of close and reopen votes.
  • Options are 5 votes, or 3 votes, or 1 vote.
  • Once our users have talked it through, we can get a one-month test started.

Let's see what our users and other site moderators have to say (we are all in different timezones).

In the mean time, how about an anonymous survey for the Arduino SE users. Please up vote one of the following comments you agree with.

Update 2020-02-04.

I spoke with a SE employee about this proposed change, and ask for your patience while they work through higher priority tasks. While we are waiting, there are some things we can do as a community:

  • Use the "Flagging" system to bring "problem" questions to the moderators attention. Before I was elected as a moderator, I raised 640 flags in 640 days (35 were declined). If you see something wrong, don't be afraid to flag it.
  • Vote to Close the question. You don't have to use the "canned reasons". Select "off topic" then "other" to give us a description of why you think the question should be closed.
  • Down vote the question. It doesn't "cost" you any rep, and it sends a clear message to the community about the perceived value of the question.
  • If you have the rep, and feel strongly about a question, do all of the three previous suggestions.

Update 2019-12-11. Our site has been scheduled to have the test started some time in January. I’ll update this answer as more information becomes available.

Update 2020-01-13. There are 2 comments to Juraj’s question that should be discussed.

The first comment is regarding this Q+A: Is it permissible to use strlcpy to copy an array to itself?.

Right now it has a score of -3, with 4 Votes To Close (VTC). The question includes a sketch that compiles, however, it’s subject matter is a basic C++ question. As a user of Arduino SE, I dis-agree with closing the Q+A. As a moderator, I was elected to work for the community, so I will give it the 5th VTC. As a user, I’m sorry to say this to the 4 people who VTC, but I’m up-voting the question to try to give the OP some rep back, and I’m up-voting Edgar’s answer because he gave a great answer as usual. Unless this question gets up to at least 100 views in 5 days, the community robot will permanently delete it from the system.

The second comment deals with other questions. One of them has 3 VTC and the other has 2 VTC. Regarding the 3 VTC: https://arduino.stackexchange.com/questions/71290/how-can-i-get-the-esp32-to-be-a-webserver-in-addition-to-other-things.

It has a score of -1 (I gave it the -1 before the OP make 2 edits to improve it). The last comment indicates the OP is still "working on it", so I will VTC. This question can still be edited and will show up in the Reopen Votes: https://arduino.stackexchange.com/review. Of course, any user, can leave a comment on any question, (or flag it) at any time, and say "I have an answer. Please re-open the question".

The question with 2 VTC: Arduino uno wifi rev2 stuck inside loop.

I can see the OP is a "New contributor" to our network, so extra patience is expected from our community. There seems to be multiple languages used here (English, German, Dutch). Arduino SE is an "English" site, however, we have a global audience with users who speak everything except English. I can only imagine how difficult it would be to teach yourself another language, just so you could ask for help on the Arduino SE network.

Some of the things I don’t like about this Q+A. There is a lot of discussion in the question’s comments. The comments should be moved to chat, which I will do. The use of the additional languages creates extra work for the community. I used Google Translate to verify that none of the comments, code comments, and language in the image were offensive (in English).

For now, I’ll add this question to my list, and watch for further VTC. If we are approved for the 3 VTC proposal, then one more VTC will close it. I won’t like it, but if that is the wishes of the community, so be it.

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  • 13
    YES: Change the close/reopen vote threshold from 5 to 3.
    – VE7JRO
    Commented Dec 4, 2019 at 20:04
  • YES: Change the close/reopen vote threshold from 5 to 1.
    – VE7JRO
    Commented Dec 4, 2019 at 21:47
  • 7
    NO: Do Not Change the close/reopen vote threshold. Leave it at 5.
    – VE7JRO
    Commented Dec 4, 2019 at 21:48

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