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My rep is going to reach 3,000 soon (2,987 at the time of this post), so I should be able to vote to close soon. How should my flagging habits change when I gain this ability? What should I do when I encounter a post that:

  1. is off topic and should be migrated to a site for which there is a migration path?
  2. is off topic and should be migrated to a site not listed in the vote-to-close dialog?
  3. is off topic and should not be migrated?
  4. should be closed for some other reason?
  5. requires a moderator action other than closing, such as deletion?
  6. is spam or offensive?

When should I use a flag, vote to close, or do both?

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  • 1
    Side note: the flag dialog will automatically convert the "it doesn't belong here" flag dialog to the vote-to-close dialog once you reach 3k. That being said, it's fewer clicks just to choose close in the first place.
    – nhinkle Mod
    Commented Aug 16, 2011 at 16:05
  • 71
    Good idea and thank you to whomever thought of including a link to this question for those who achieve "vote to close" status. I just got "vote to close" priveledges (although I can't spell privledges... priviledges... privilegdes) on Literature beta SE and that's how I got here.
    – Ellie K
    Commented Apr 21, 2012 at 7:53
  • 1
    @DragonLord I'm pretty sure you've heard about it, mainly because you corrected my spelling. But for those who don't know, it's the fact that non-moderators who hold a gold badge of a tag that the initial revision of the post contained can bindingly close that question as a duplicate and bindingly reopen any such post that is closed as a duplicate, so long as they have >= 3k reputation.
    – gparyani
    Commented Jul 17, 2014 at 15:51
  • 10
    Great post and +1 for what @EllieKesselman said, but shouldn't this question itself be moved to Meta SE?
    – CherryDT
    Commented May 23, 2016 at 12:37

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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1: … is off topic and should be migrated to a site for which there is a migration path?

Vote to close as off-topic as "belongs on another site".

2: … is off topic and should be migrated to a site not listed in the vote-to-close dialog?

Vote to close as off-topic and flag for ♦ moderator attention using the free-text box.
This ensures that even if we don't believe the migration is warranted that you will at least still be helping to close an off-topic question.

Make sure the question is off-topic here, on-topic there and good quality before taking action – if it's not all three of these things we won't even consider migration.

3: … is off topic and should not be migrated?

Vote to close as off-topic as "off-topic".

4: … should be closed for some other reason?

Vote to close using the relevant close reason.

If none of the reasons fit then consider if it really does need closing, and maybe flag for a ♦ using the free-text flag if you believe there is a case for doing so.

5: … requires a moderator action other than closing, such as deletion?

If it's something the community can do first (edit to fix problems, flag spam, close, etc) then that route should be taken first.

If that fails, it's something the community cannot handle or the problem is urgent then please flag for ♦ moderator attention and use the free-text flag.

6: … is spam or offensive?

Flag as spam or offensive.

Note that even if a question is old and does not receive much attention, casting a close vote will put it into a review queue. Other users can work through the queue by casting their own votes or deciding to leave the question open. This means there is no need to flag old questions for moderator attention anymore.

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    Does the last paragraph still apply with /review and its close tab? What are examples of urgent problems that warrant moderator flags?
    – Daniel Beck Mod
    Commented Jan 8, 2012 at 11:58
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    @DanielBeck I'd say it's probably less important, but still a little bit relevant (as we are likely to have more closers than reviewers, although I've no numbers to support this assumption). And as for "urgent", well, I'm not actually sure... it's been a while since I wrote this.
    – DMA57361 Mod
    Commented Jan 9, 2012 at 13:07
  • Since the queues have been working quite efficiently and any close vote cast on old questions will be picked up rather fast, there's no need to flag those. I therefore removed the last paragraph. Haven't come across anything urgent either, so if something's wrong, people will flag the question anyway, I suppose.
    – slhck Mod
    Commented May 20, 2013 at 14:52

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