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Recenly, in Chat it was suggested by an SF moderator:

One side issue is, given the volume we're seeing now, I don't think users have enough daily close votes.

The response by an SE employee was:

if you put in a meta SF post for that, and it gets some upvotes, we'll look at it for sure

So, here's the post, Let's have some upvotes!

Optionally, it would be even better if there were a few levels:

  • Everyone starts with the standard 25 close votes per day
  • Every 500 close votes you cast, you get 5 more per day, to a maximum of 50.

Or something like that... the idea for levels of extra close votes is really just off the top of my head. I'd be fine with it being a simple increase in the number per day for everyone.

Can we also have an increase in the number of close vote reviews?

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  • 2
    Amen brother! Thanks for posting this, too many things on my plate.
    – Michael Hampton Mod
    Commented Nov 18, 2014 at 6:08
  • 3
    The real problem is that fewer and fewer people care enough to be bothered. More close votes for a few won't increase the number cast when people who could no longer bother.
    – user9517
    Commented Nov 18, 2014 at 6:10
  • Are there any stats that suggest this is required ? Do may people use all of their close votes every day ?
    – user9517
    Commented Nov 18, 2014 at 22:40
  • @iain There is so much crap on the front page, I can easily use up all my close votes: I did about 10 reviews, then started going through the most recent questions and voted to close about 4 out of 5 of them.
    – Ward - Trying Codidact Mod
    Commented Nov 20, 2014 at 4:59
  • 1
    I understand were you're coming from but really there are facts needed. I wrote a scraper which scrapes the closed questions. As far as I can see very few people (if any) regularly run out of close votes so giving people more isn't really going to help. My results will be skewed for a variety of reasons and could, because I haven't spent much time validating them, be wildly inaccurate. There is a small core of people who cast close votes none appear to run out with any regularity and most get nowhere near running out.
    – user9517
    Commented Nov 20, 2014 at 7:05
  • 1
    To solve the quality issue the bar needs to be raised significantly. Doing this means that people won't have to spend so much of their time wading through crap to find something interesting to answer and won't end up feeling like they are being janitors or back on a helldesk, Yes, perception is reality but fact are better.
    – user9517
    Commented Nov 20, 2014 at 7:11
  • 2
    One thing to note is that without Michael Hampton the front page would be significantly worse.
    – user9517
    Commented Nov 20, 2014 at 7:16

3 Answers 3

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One thing is certain: without an attendant increase in the close vote review limit, this would only result in the close review queue length increasing.

Putting questions on hold is not a panacea for the quality of questions on this site, though it is a step in the right direction. We can also vote them down, and encourage good Q&A with upvotes and answers to help drown out some of the noise. Sometimes, editing is better than closing. Often, migration is better than anything, though of course the close and migration processes share a quota.

I think that in general, we need to do more to encourage active participation by our high-rep users, not merely active moderation. Thus, I think that an increase in close votes and review quota, if it is at all appropriate, should be extremely limited. I suggest that an increase of one review and one close vote per 1000 rep above 5000 is an appropriate number.

We should not base it on close votes or reviews. That merely enables robo-reviewing and potentially encourages moderation activities at the expense of participation activities; the latter must be a prerequisite for the former.

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  • I'd ask more questions, if I had any!
    – Michael Hampton Mod
    Commented Nov 20, 2014 at 9:23
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I've set the limit at 50 per day, making Server Fault consistent with other large sites on the network.

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    This is a good start to encouraging a site that doesn't do community moderation to do so. +1
    – durron597
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 13:44
  • The review queue still doesn't let me do more than 20: "Thank you for reviewing 20 close votes today; come back in 8 hours to continue reviewing." The close window shows my remaining votes, though.
    – Nathan C
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 15:50
  • Review limits are independent of close vote limits. Prior to, you had 24 votes per day, @nathan.
    – Shog9
    Commented Apr 17, 2015 at 16:06
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Bumping this. Given recent events it's possible we need this now more than ever. I've burned through 20 in an hour today alone, and our close queue is steadily increasing.

I'm in favor of an immediate increase in close votes, and also a tiered approach based on how close votes are being used. 500 is a lot of closed votes, If we get bumped up to 50 close votes immediately, then I'd like to see an increase at the 250 or 500 vote mark of 5 or 10 close votes, as motivation to continue keeping site quality high.

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  • Last year the close queue was regularly over 100 for a while. Eventually it went back down to zero. Although it's gone up again lately, I don't know that that means we need to change our close vote quota. But I don't really object either.
    – Andrew Schulman
    Commented Apr 13, 2015 at 17:53
  • Well there was some concern of people using questions that should've been closed as justification to ask OT questions, so there's that. I think it went to zero after elections.
    – MDMoore313
    Commented Apr 13, 2015 at 17:55
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    Having it at 0 is an ideal situation for the queue, but depending on a moderator to maintain it at 0 rather than the community (and the community likely already has sufficient close votes) is not a long term sustainable process. If the community is unwilling to do the community moderation that is built into the SE model, there are other problems lurking than the activities of an individual moderator.
    – user87510
    Commented Apr 14, 2015 at 18:51

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