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Most if not all questions that requires closing are need to be closed for obvious reasons.
If I say most is because some duplicates are questionable and up to discussion about if they are a duplicate or not. But when it comes to on/off topic, too broad etc.. It is pretty much always obvious on first sight.

Why do we need 5 votes to close these questions. I'm not talking about a single click to close system but why not dropping it to 3 at least? This would greatly lighten the work charge in the close vote queue by pretty much 40%. The main security when closing questions it the fact that users cannot vote before acquiring 3000 rep+. By then, these users are usually capable of knowing what questions belongs on this site. 3 of them would be more then enough to tell a question needs to be closed.

Try finding a post with 3 close votes that shouldn't be closed.

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  • 6
    Sadly 3k rep does not mean at all that such users know what belongs on the site IMO.
    – juergen d
    Commented Jan 6, 2014 at 18:20
  • @juergend Why is the required rep 3k then?
    – ʞunɥdɐpɐɥd
    Commented Jan 6, 2014 at 18:20
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    @insertcleverxmasname Because it was good enough, not because it was perfect.
    – Servy
    Commented Jan 6, 2014 at 18:27
  • (I'm occasionally hunting for the Shog answer that had the history of close vote counts, that 3 wasn't enough... to dup this to)
    – user213963
    Commented Jan 6, 2014 at 20:18

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No, I think reducing the number of close votes across the board to 3 would be a bad idea. People make bad calls on close votes all the time, and other folks regularly try to game badges in the close vote queue by not bothering to read anything they review. By leaving the number of close votes at 5, this makes it harder for those bad judgments to lead to an improperly closed question.

As far as 3000+ rep users knowing what's right for the system, if that was true we wouldn't have had to institute audits to prevent that same class of reviewers from letting spam and vandalism into the system. It's a bit of a barrier, but there are plenty of bad users above that threshold.

Let me repeat this again: just because something is in the close votes queue does not mean that it needs to be closed. Too many people seem to be losing sight of this, and it's leading to good questions being closed. Everyone seems to be of the impression that the problem with the close votes queue is that we're not closing everything fast enough. I'm not so sure that this is the core issue.

Maybe random's right, we should just hide the close vote queue count.

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  • Thanks. I was starting to think no one would dare explaining.
    – ʞunɥdɐpɐɥd
    Commented Jan 6, 2014 at 18:43
  • Where do I say I disagree? I propose it, made my point. It was rejected. I was just wondering why since no one was explaining, he explained. Makes sense to me. Let's move on.
    – ʞunɥdɐpɐɥd
    Commented Jan 6, 2014 at 18:47

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