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I have a question about my Chemistry Stack Exchange post: Is there a terminology contradiction about whether the conjugate of a strong acid is a "weak base"?

The original version of my post was asking about several apparently contradictions in the ways that "strong" and "weak" were used for acids and bases. But, since I was asking multiple (albeit related) questions, it was closed as too broad. When the question was closed, it came with an automatically generated message saying "please edit your question."

So, I edited the post and pared it down to a single question. However, even after editing the question, it looks like it stayed in the "on hold" state, and then eventually switched to the "closed" state.

So, it looks like even after I edited the question, because it was still in the "on hold" and "closed" states, it didn't show up on anybody's radar as a question that was awaiting an answer.

After I edited the question, was the system supposed to automatically re-open it, so that people would see it as if it had been posted as a new question? (If it was, then is that a bug, that that apparently didn't happen?)

On the other hand, after editing the question, was I supposed to do something to re-open it or get it out of the "on hold" state, so that people would see it as a new question? (If so, then there's a different bug -- when the question was closed as too broad, the auto-generated message said "please edit your question", but it didn't tell me what else I was supposed to do.)

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Editing the question was the right route here. It did get put into the review queue, but the responses were mixed:

Leave Closed

Reopen

Edit and Reopen

Leave Closed

Reopen

Leave Closed

I think that the "tie" of the votes went to it being closed.

Rather than override the community's decision, I have given it an edit just now, which will bump it up to the front page again, but won't put it back into the reopen queue, unfortunately. We can see if there's a change of heart to reopen it.

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  • $\begingroup$ I don't understand though, when it was "closed" the first time it was closed for a specific reason (asking multiple questions in a single question). Once the question has been edited so that the original reason for closing no longer applies, can it still just be closed for "no reason"? Is it cheating to just post the same question as a new question? $\endgroup$
    – Bennett
    Commented Mar 27, 2018 at 1:50
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    $\begingroup$ It's a democratic process, for better or worse. I don't know the rationale that each of the voters had in mind when they encountered it in the queue, unfortunately. Some may have felt that it was still too broad, but it's anyone's guess. Asking it as a new question will probably lead to it being closed as a duplicate of the first. I think it's in far better shape now, but I don't want to act as a unilateral "tiebreaker" for the reopen vote. I'm hoping this Meta post and the edit will give the question some exposure so that someone can kick off a reopen vote. $\endgroup$
    – jonsca
    Commented Mar 27, 2018 at 2:16
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    $\begingroup$ @Bennett Your question was successfully voted to reopen. Good to go! $\endgroup$
    – hBy2Py
    Commented Mar 27, 2018 at 21:26
  • $\begingroup$ @jonsca thanks. I am glad the question got nudged and re-opened, however even though it ultimately worked out in this case, it seems like a bug in the process. A question is either useful to other readers and worthy of an answer, or it isn't; it shouldn't matter whether it's a brand-new question, or an edited version of a question that was closed previously. Otherwise, the workaround is to open a new question every time (instead of editing the existing question). $\endgroup$
    – Bennett
    Commented Mar 30, 2018 at 0:06

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