What does it mean for a question to be closed?

Question

• My question just got closed! What does that mean?
• How do questions get closed?
• What do I need to do to get my question reopened?

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This Q&A is our specific one to expand on the guidance in the built in help center article.

Answer 1

Closed means it is temporarily blocked from being answered

Questions get closed because community members think it shouldn’t be answered in its current state. See below for more on that process. Do note that closure is temporary, unlike what you might see on traditional forums. Once a question has been edited to be answerable, users (the same or others) will reopen it.

How do I know what needs to be edited?

A question being closed will make a post notice appear on the question, which gives the close reason. In addition, usually someone will give a comment pointing out what is wrong, and what needs to be addressed. Pay more heed to the comments, than the specifics of the notice. The close reasons are a limited set built into the site, while the comments are what users have chosen to advise for the specific reasons. Quite often we simply have to choose the closest, or most applicable reason, but the comments should clarify exactly what needs doing.

For more general guidance for the more common close reasons, see Why was my question closed as too broad, unclear, or opinion-based? from the FAQ.

What do I do once it’s been fixed?

Primarily wait. It’ll take a bit of time for users to see the question and reopen it. If the fix is simple — such as specifying the system — that’s probably enough. If the fix is more involved or subtle — such as rescoping the question, or adjust it to better ask for expertise based answers — you could reply to the comment pointing this out (use @username to reply) asking them whether it’s fixed. Once the question is reopened, please remove your own and flag the outdated comments as “no longer needed”.

How does the closure process work?

For a question to be closed it needs 5 users with at least 3k rep to vote to close it. Users with less rep can flag a question recommending it to be closed. Either a flag or a close vote will put the question into a review queue for users with 3k to vote to close (or leave open). There are two exceptions to this. Community elected (‘diamond’) moderators can close a question with a single vote and users with a gold badge in a given tag can close questions with that tag as duplicates as other questions.

Reopening works the same way. 5 users with 3k rep can vote to reopen a question and other users can flag for it to be reopened. The exceptions with ‘diamond’ moderators and gold badge holders are the same. There is an additional point with the review queue, which is that the first edit to a closed question will also put it into a review queue. As such, try to use the first edit to fix the problem, rather than details in it (like minor spelling and grammar). See Should closed questions be edited without fixing the question? for more details.