Close Vote Reason Logic When There Isn't a Majority [duplicate]

Question

I voted to close this question. It has actually been closed with this reason:

"Questions must demonstrate a minimal understanding of the problem being solved. Tell us what you've tried to do, why it didn't work, and how it should work. See also: Stack Overflow question checklist" – Blorgbeard, his

As you can see, only two people voted for this reason (Blorgbeard and his). Benjamin Gruenbaum and myself voted to close as

This question appears to be off-topic because it is about a typo

(I can guess that Ben voted for the above because it is displayed as a comment under the question.)

My questions:

• In general, if the close votes do not have a majority close reason, how does the system decide which reason gets displayed?
• Specifically for this case where there is a tie, why did one reason get chosen over the other?
• What happens if there are 5 different close reasons? Which one gets displayed?

Answer 1

As I understand it...

If there is a two way tie - 2 vote too broad, 2 vote opinionated, and 1 vote for off topic, then the last vote to vote in the tie (too broad and opinionated) is the result.

If there is a five way tie, the last vote is the result.

If there is a mod voting to close, that is the reason (no matter if it was a tie or not).

From What is a “closed” question?:

If a moderator participates in the closure, the reason the moderator selects is displayed. Otherwise, the question gets closed with the most frequently given reason. If there is a tie, the latest reason is used. However, if multiple potential duplicates were suggested, all of them will be displayed in the automatically generated "possible duplicates" box.

The design for this is likely that if the question was changed after the first vote was cast (it started out as too broad and then became off topic), the last vote in the tie is likely the most correct one... if a tie breaker is needed.