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In the "Votes Cast" section of my profile, my vote to close this question is annotated with "(deleted)":

However, the close vote does not appear to have been deleted: it successfully closed the question:

Why was this vote marked as "(deleted)"?


If the vote was deleted my some internal process after the question was closed and the closers were recorded, I call that a . Regardless of what happens internally, it's irrelevant to users if close votes are deleted after they have taken effect.

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2 Answers 2

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It means the vote was deleted.

That's not unusual - close votes are often deleted after they've taken effect. Your votes tab lists them anyway because otherwise it would only show your failures...

The (deleted) indicator was added a few days ago for internal purposes. I'm not sure it's supposed to be visible to non-employees; unless you can think of a good use for this information, I would agree that it is a bug.

As of February 5th 2016, the deleted indicator is no longer shown to users.

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  • 8
    I thought it was supposed to be internal-only cause it's kind of useless and confusing for everyone else.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Apr 8, 2013 at 2:58
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    Should say (waffles) for everyone else. Just as useless and confusing, but much tastier with maple syrup.
    – Shog9
    Apr 8, 2013 at 3:04
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    Indeed. Deleted votes just taste like sadness and regret.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Apr 8, 2013 at 3:08
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    @AnnaLear I've had waffles like that too, though. Apr 8, 2013 at 3:22
  • Hahaha, I love this! Apr 8, 2013 at 4:44
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    But what exactly does it mean for a close vote to be deleted? Not all my successful close votes are deleted, so it doesn’t seem to be synonymous with being successful. I can’t really think of anything meaningful to happen to a close vote after it carried.
    – doncherry
    Apr 25, 2013 at 4:34
  • That's kind of bizarre -- I just noticed this now as well, and came here to find the reason. I would have expected it to say "Closed"... what "Deleted" is referring to is very much not intuitive. Jul 30, 2013 at 13:58
  • I don't feel this is the case. Every close vote I have has "(deleted)" next to questions that were actually closed. All of the questions without that mark are still open.
    – vcsjones
    Sep 4, 2013 at 17:25
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    @vcsjones Close votes expire so if you look at your oldest votes you might find some (deleted) that weren't closed. Sep 26, 2013 at 17:11
  • @animuson This means we no longer have an easy way to determine aged-away close voyes, correct? Seems like it would be better to just display (aged away) or (closed) or stuff like that..
    – hichris123
    Feb 5, 2016 at 17:33
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    Strictly-speaking, it was never easy to determine aged-away close votes, @hichris123. Now it's slightly even less easy. Displaying actual disposition would be a separate request.
    – Shog9
    Feb 5, 2016 at 17:52
  • @Shog9 Already requested... many years ago. meta.stackexchange.com/a/203394/237685
    – hichris123
    Feb 5, 2016 at 19:56
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    If this information is ever re-exposed, it would probably be more intuitive if the votes that are not deleted would be marked e.g. as "(active)" or "(pending)". Feb 6, 2016 at 20:21
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This "bug" apparently is still implemented. As far as I can tell, every (closure) vote I've cast was deleted after the question was closed ("put on hold" in the new terminology). So usually it means that the question was closed since the vote was cast.

I suspect it works like this: closure votes are counted until they exceed 5 (or mod votes), the question is closed (="on hold"), then all closure votes are deleted so that reopen votes can be counted. As far as timing is concerned, as far as I can tell, the deltion of the vote is instantaneous when the question is closed. I just verified that by casting the 5th close vote on a question. My vote was immediately recorded as deleted in my voting history (like 0.5sec later when I got to that tab).

There is one other case where I found my close votes were marked as deleted: when I retracted them. That's actually the only case I've seen where my close votes are marked deleted but the question is not closed.

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