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Today I saw "Test to see if User/Pass entered for a WebService are correct or not", realized it was a duplicate and voted to close it.

I then saw in the comments that I had voted to close it four days ago!

How did that happen? There were no close votes listed at all, and I was permitted to vote to close it today!

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  • 5
    Nice, a question about close votes, which itself is closed, and is linked to from the SO documentation on close votes.
    – asmeurer
    Commented Jun 29, 2014 at 18:22

2 Answers 2

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We now use a form of sliding expiration, so as long as close/reopen votes keep arriving at the rate of at least one every 4 days, they will not expire.

Once the votes do expire, vote aging happens every 24 hours, so you can expect the remaining very old close/reopen votes to expire at the rate of 1 per day after that, unless of course someone casts another close/reopen vote in which case the expiration timer resets to 4 days.

Also, if the question has <= 100 views, no expiration on close (or reopen) votes is done at all as of March 2015, close votes still expire as above, but the required rate is reduced to one per 14 days.

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    The bit about Close votes age away harmlessly after 4 days if the threshold is not reached. on the privileges page is now slightly wrong.
    – sarnold
    Commented Jul 6, 2011 at 10:50
  • Would it make sense to apply the same sliding window expiration to comment flags?
    – sarnold
    Commented Jul 8, 2011 at 9:10
  • Quick question: Is this just a more advanced version of the original system? I thought that close votes were all wiped after a few days already
    – TheLQ
    Commented Aug 6, 2011 at 3:19
  • @sarnold no, I don't think so, because comment votes are pushed into the moderator flag review queue and I can't imagine them surviving for more than a day, tops, before being handled
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Aug 6, 2011 at 3:25
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    Would it be sensible to change the views count to be n views since the current vote started?
    – Flexo - Save the data dump
    Commented Jan 27, 2012 at 21:59
  • Is this rule applied in all SE communities?
    – hkBattousai
    Commented Jun 22, 2012 at 18:18
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Close votes age away after 4 days if the question is not closed, according to the FAQ.

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  • I never realized that. I guess I haven't seen such obvious duplicates remain open.
    – John Saunders
    Commented Jul 11, 2010 at 19:36

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