If this question can be reworded to fit the rules in the help center, please edit the question.   If you're lower rep and you don't know what the reopen link is as a result, then it's very easy to read this as "it's closed, but will be reopened if the reason for closure is edited away". My edit was approved, and I didn't understand why the question wasn't reopened until I remembered from another SE site that reopening is a separate thing, and a privilege that I don't have access to on SO.  Something's wrong here. The wording does not clearly state that I can edit a post, but editing has nothing to do with reopening.  And now that I remember that distinction (to be clear, I only know the distinction because I'm high-rep on another site; I didn't figure it out through SO's UI), I'm not sure what the path forward is. I flagged it and tried to explain this but I have no way of checking the outcome of the flag that I know of. I added a comment in hopes that OP or someone else could see it and vote to reopen, but there's no feedback there either. Future visitors will see that the question is closed, and they'll likely assume that it was closed for its current wording and thus see no reason to reopen.  If I see another question I can edit for the purpose of reopening, why would I do so if I have less than 3000 rep?
1095
To reopen a closed question,  must agree that the question is suitable for the site and cast votes to reopen the question. But:  How does one actually vote to reopen? Is there a reputation level that you must have before you can see this function? Or do I just leave a comment along the lines of, &quot;I vote to reopen&quot;? What happens if someone with less than 3000 reputation leaves a comment that they wish to vote to reopen? How can one draw attention to their closed questions? Is it done via a posting new question? Or do you edit the closed question?   Related:  For more information, see &quot;&quot; in the .
115309
On the Gaming.SE Meta, I asked  regarding how the duplicate close reason text (for when a question is voted as a duplicate by the community) should be changed.  From my post, here is what the current close text states:    My proposal was to have it changed to something that refers to editing the question to be more clear and allow for it to be reopened.  My suggestion was:     This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, or if your question is actually different than the duplicate, [please edit your question] to be more clear and allow for it to be reopened.   Where the part within the [ ] would be a link to the edit page for the question.  It is to my understanding that usually we don't recommend people to ask a new question but to rather edit the current one and allow for it to be reopened. In fact, most of the time when someone asks a new question, it's flagged as a duplicate of the duplicate (at least over on Arqade).  The reason I ask this here, is because I flagged my post for a moderator to view it and have the changed implemented/submitted to SE, but they said it's an Exchange wide close reason, and that we couldn't change it.   So, should we reword the closure text for duplicate questions or is asking a new question the proper protocol?
64293
How do re-open votes expire?  I couldn't find anything in the help center, but I did find   I voted to re-open  on June 30, and my re-open vote has expired.  It's possible, but seems unlikely, that the question has been viewed 100 times since I voted to re-open (it's currently at 230 views).  Does a re-open vote expire when a question has been viewed 100 times since the vote has been cast, and a day has passed, or is a day passing sufficient when the question has been viewed 100 times, ever, even if those views were before the re-open vote was cast?
119930
As of a few minutes ago, if you have a gold tag-badge for a tag associated with a question that's been closed as a duplicate, you can edit the duplicate links to replace, add, remove or re-arrange them:    These changes are tracked in PostHistory to allow anyone to detect abuse, while the results update the PostLinks table so that existing logic continues to work (I mention this because some of you may wish to lean on  for observing how this works out, once it gets updated). Rationale This has been requested for... . In February of 2013, Jarrod replaced the venerable but messy method of marking duplicates by editing links into the top of the post with a system that records the question IDs in a separate table and renders them as needed. This was a huge improvement... Not only did it make tracking the usage of duplicates much easier and more reliable, it also prevented editors from inadvertently (or intentionally...) editing out the duplicate links without reopening the question. But it also , which was useful in cases where more than one duplicate was appropriate (for instance, &quot;too broad&quot; questions that consist of multiple questions, each already answered) or situations where the asker clarified their problem and a different duplicate link became appropriate. This was clearly not ideal; some folks resorted to reopening and re-closing, while others  to work around the deficiency. Today, that changes. Oded stepped up to implement an elegant solution: allow  to also modify the list at will. This stops short of fully restoring the previous capabilities - after all, there were serious downsides to that. But it should suffice to allow those most familiar with a given topic to better curate it. Please report any bugs you find, tagging them  . Enjoy!
89664
Scenario:   Assume you are a user suffering some type of being banned, where if you try to suggest an edit. You will not be able to do so, and instead you get a message like "You are temporarily banned from suggesting edits - please review your edit history." Navigate to anything similar to this:   Using the link "" you will arrive at a page containing (only) this message:     This post has been deleted - no more edits are allowed  Change 'reputation' to any other valid tag, eg 'new-user', and the same scenario can be repeated for that tag also (though its 'improve wiki tag' also varies of course).   Related feature requests:   appears to me as a way to prevent this scenario from happening.  Possible duplicate questions:  To avoid creating a duplicate question, I searched for . The search results do not contain any question titles that seem related to my question here.  I also think this issue is not a duplicate of "".  My Questions:   It appears to me that this message is at least misleading, if not wrong. No? Shouldn't it display a normal error message indicating that the user is not allowed to edit due to an account restriction? Why would it think that the post is deleted?
58562
This is sort of similar to , which was positively received, but was declined for technical reasons. I propose that users who are editing a post that was closed within the last five days be shown a notice on top of the edit form indicating that the post will be added to the reopen queue if edited, and that if one does not plan on editing the post into a state where it can be reopened, one should wait until five days after closure to make the edit. Closed questions are only added to the review queue once per closure by editing, and if a user comes by and makes a minor (yet benign) edit, the diff that reopen reviewers see is just that of the minor edit, and as such they dismiss the task as &quot;Leave Closed&quot;, which prevents it from being added to the queue again by another edit. This deprives the post author (and others interested in seeing the question reopened) of their chance to get the post reopened by editing. While some of these edits may be performed by users using (semi-)automated tools who would thus not see or overlook the warning, this will be a big help because 99%+ of users make edits solely manually and would thus see and possibly respond to such a notice. To help make this request more technically feasible, I propose that it instead only be loaded with the edit form, and that it should only be shown to users who can make binding edits. (Suggested edits occur at the time of approval, and the request to let the reviewers know has already been declined.) Here's an example of what I'm expecting:  This question was recently [closed/marked as duplicate]. This question will be added to a queue for possible reopening if you make this edit. If you are not planning to edit this post into a state where it can be reopened, please wait until [date and time after 70 days] to make your edit. If you are only making edits to the question's tags, please ignore this notice.
83403
Previously - posts that were a mix of closed, deleted or locked use to show at least two of those banners - however, now it only seems to show one.  If a post is closed and deleted (doing a search for closed:1 deleted:1) it only seems to be that the deletion banner is shown while it use to show the close banner and the deletion banner. They're definitely closed according to the timeline and the "reopen" option being available - there's just not the closure reason.  Posts that meet closed:1 deleted:1 locked:1 don't seem to show the lock or close banner... On here for instance the results from closed:1 locked:1 don't look right. Again, according to the timeline, they're definitely closed and locked - just no reason as to why is shown.  It looks to be a network wide thing and not just an SO one.
18180
I've noticed the following happen a few times:   A user posts a question. The question is closed as a duplicate and the usual "Possible Duplicate" links are added at the top. The user promptly removes the duplicate links, even though the question is still closed as a duplicate. (excessive use of list items =P)   Now, I could understand this behavior if there was some dispute about whether or not the question was a duplicate, and the OP were to remove the links and post reasons why they disagree with the closing. However, I've noticed this happening without any attempt to defend the question (such as ).  In my opinion, no one should be allowed to remove the "Possible Duplicate" links as long as the question is still closed as a duplicate. The links should remain for the benefit of the community, so they can navigate to the duplicate questions and either post answers there or read them over and judge if the closing was actually fair. Once/if the question is reopened the links could be edited out if one so chooses.  I guess this is part discussion, part feature request:  Could the "Possible Duplicate" links remain un-editable for as long as the question is still closed?
26454
In seeing some of the potential solutions and problems related to this  I noticed something. Why are closed questions allowed to obtain more reputation for a user?   So my recommendation(even though it's a pain to implement probably) is this(note, this includes all close votes except for migrations)   When a question gets closed, only the question gets retroactively marked as community wiki. By retroactive, I mean all upvotes on the question before closing are undone.  Also note, downvotes are kept. This means a closed question with downvotes will always have a net negative reputation.  When a question is reopened, it gets retroactively assigned to the user instead of the community user. This just undoes point #1.   Details:  Point one solves these problems:   User asks a popular, but "bikeshed" subjective question. Even if the question is closed an hour later, they may accumulate 15 upvotes. With this system, those 15 upvotes won't matter. Downvotes are kept to the user while being closed. This deals with low-quality questions that people should get a negative reputation affect for. However, after being closed downvotes should be assigned to the community user to prevent the downward spiral affect, especially since pitty upvotes won't be able to save them. People can still upvote as a method of suggesting that a question should be reopened. The upvote just won't count for the author of the question until reopened.   I see no actual point in closed questions being capable of acquiring reputation, except for maybe duplicates(but only barely).  So, here is my feature-request. :)  Also, to solve the  you could apply the same thing toward the answers of closed questions. This isn't a big problem with any close reasons other than Not A Real Question, where many low quality answers fall but with users who try to answer them anyway with the small amount of information given. I think those users should not be discredited for their attempts.
121969
Useful threads are being closed as "not constructive:"     This question is not a good fit to our Q&amp;A format. We expect answers to generally involve facts, references, or specific expertise; this question will likely solicit opinion, debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. See the .   For example,  was very useful for me since I am new to obfuscation and the question gave me a start. Also that question has lots of votes and bookmarks - these alone are the  markers of usefulness. The question is closed anyway. No idea why.  Same happened to my question, , which received one bookmark immediately.  I was waiting for an answer with the two products downloaded and installed.  I desired that experienced people would share their thoughts and point me to the better one. No. Closed. I.e. I must go to some other forum and ask there or I must search on Google and write down the pros and cons of each myself. I am not asking questions just because I have tons of time and want to chat; I need an answer, that's why I am asking. I am asking because I think that SO has the most professional people to answer and because I didn't find a good answer in Google.  I saw other questions closed which I myself found to be useful and I bookmarked some of the closed questions.  UPDATE  If I want people who have an experience which I do not have with some software products and I want to see which product is better in the terms of usability and reliability, not just better in terms of the price or has a better official website or better described on the official website, how do I ask this question? Or is this a question which I cannot ask on SO? I.e. this sort of information is not available on SO?  Is this one breaking the rules as well:  ?
32009
just showed up on 's front page like this:    ... which makes no sense, because the question hasn't been modified since May 25th, and the person who edited it wasn't CatLord anyway:    Turns out what actually happened was that CatLord cast a fifth reopen vote to reopen the question.    So that stamp in the questions list should probably say this instead:     reopened 4m ago CatLord 10.7k   Or just:     reopened 4m ago
102605
I just had a case of a user who re-posted his question because his first question was closed as a duplicate. And, logically, I closed his re-post as a duplicate of his original, asking him to edit his original and explain why it's not a duplicate, so we can reopen it.  This process has worked like that for years now, but suddenly I realized that with the new message, question repetition is even encouraged:     This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.   Clearly, a new user who finds their questions closed will now be happy to just post their question again and again, until it's not a duplicate anymore, instead of just fixing their original post.  We need to be more explicit about this, and show this message to the OP of the question:     If those answers do not fully address your question, please edit your question and explain why it is not a duplicate.   The original message should still be visible to other users and visitors, as they can't fix that question, of course.
72884
The questions  and  were both marked as duplicates.   However, one of them has a different "marked as duplicate" notice below from the other. The first says "This question was marked as an exact duplicate of an existing question",  and the other one says "This question has been asked before and already has an answer".   I thought that maybe the messages were different because one of the questions is mine and the other one isn't as explained at , so I logged out and saw that there were still two different messages:            There are two differences that I noticed. First of all, the first one was closed by someone who had a gold badge in one of the question's tags, whereas the other one was closed by five normal users. Second of all, the first closure is much more recent than the other one. Is the reason to the different wording one of these? Or is there another reason?  Why are there two different duplicate notices? What is the difference between them?  This is not a duplicate of , as that question asks about the link to the target question above, while mine asks about the "marked as duplicate" notice below.
6290
Having just  from any of the queues, it was reviewing close votes; however, this audit was flawed in that I didn't even cast a close vote.  Often I press the Close button to preview greater detail and sentiment of the closure, spawning the Why should this question be closed dialog box:    Especially for duplicates, where functionality is solely dependent on spawning this dialog.  From Closing > Duplicate, I can search or view selected duplicates:    Although, I realize general closure reasons are summarized on the page:    This question had 6-upvotes, but seemed very localized referencing subjective query is "taking too long" and even had a sqlfiddle link.  Maybe overly broad regarding performance tuning, the OP was posting like a forum with two answer posts to his own question  and  with one of those answers asking follow-up questions.    Wanting to gauge community response, current closure totals struck my curiosity.  So, I pressed the Close button and boom - oh, the humanity!  I failed, and didn't even cast a close vote.    Votes are not cast until a reason for closure is selected and Vote to Close is pressed.  Taking any review very seriously on this site, it only seems fair that my review quality is tested through actionable steps instead of clicking for more detailed information, leveraging the functional design of the close vote user interface.  Sure, it's complex to seed fake vote totals, and then there's controversy of mindless voting in the majority or people who simply cherry pick 4-vote questions.  Still though, it seems unfair I should hesitate to review further information of vote totals and duplicates before skipping due to the implementation of this audit.
111330
When a question is closed as a duplicate, its body is edited to auto-insert the link to that duplicate. I think there are a couple problems with that:   If the question is reopened, the auto-generated insert isn't automatically removed. It allows the poster (or anyone else) to roll back the post and protest the closure by reverting the automatic edit.    I propose that the links to the duplicate(s) are moved into a separate "header" field above the post instead of being edited into the body of the question. That way it could be removed or hidden if the question is reopened and it could not be edited or reverted without reopening the question.   There is some potential for loss of functionality there, since right now it is possible to edit the post to either include additional related links or remove obsolete/incorrect ones. That could be addressed by making the "duplicate field" editable at a certain reputation level (10k?) and enabling others to suggest edits for it that'd go through the usual approval/rejection process.  Thoughts?
57519
As mentioned in , a question closed because it was not well-phrased is currently very unlikely to be reopened after an edit clarifying the issues. Those who voted to close should at least be asked to reconsider and reopen the question after such an edit.
52942
Before you vote to close: there are a lot of questions with titles and/or bodies that are similar to this one. However, none of the ones I saw deal with this particular case.    I have an  that is appropriately closed as a duplicate of an FAQ entry. I just tried to delete it because it doesn't really add any useful search terms or overall value to MSO. I got the following message:     Sorry, this question has answers and cannot be deleted; flag it for moderator attention instead.   That's the same message that comes up when you try to delete your own unclosed answered questions. Since I'm a 10k user, I think the system should at least allow me to cast a regular, non-binding delete vote for that post, if not delete it unilaterally.  I also think that 20k users attempting to delete their own recently closed posts shouldn't have to wait through the 48-hour "possible reopening" period, but since my example question was closed over a year ago I don't know what the system actually does.