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There have been some questions recently about how large the close-votes queue is and whether it can be improved along with requests for more close votes. On Stack Overflow I rarely use all my close votes every day. If I'm just online at work, I might use 10-25, depending on how much time I spend on the site. However, when I have 2 hours to sit down and help clean-up I can easily burn through my entire day's worth and then wish I had more.

Rather than giving users X close votes per day, can they have 7X close votes per week? I would restrict it slightly so that people aren't allowed to go insane and to ensure that they have some left over for the rest of the week.

For example, if the current maximum number of close votes each day was X assume that everyone had to maintain a minimum of X/2 votes to use for each day of the remainder of the week. Then, for a person with 50 votes currently, the minimum number votes remaining at the end of each day would be as follows:

+-----+--------------+---------------------+
| Day | Max votes/day| Min votes remaining |
+-----+--------------+---------------------+
|   1 |          100 |                 250 |
|   2 |          100 |                 150 |
|   3 |          100 |                 125 |
|   4 |          100 |                  75 |
|   5 |          100 |                  50 |
|   6 |          100 |                  25 |
|   7 |          100 |                   0 |
+-----+--------------+---------------------+

This assumes a maximum of 100 votes per day to avoid groups doing a lot of damage.

Being able to use close votes when I am able to do so would enable me to be far more effective in my use of them.

tl;dr

Let people use their close votes more effectively by choosing when they can use them; spread the limit out over a week.

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  • 16
    I like this -- it's Saturday night, the kids are in bed, the wife is watching re-runs of Revenge... time to close a crap-load of questions!
    – LittleBobbyTables - Au Revoir
    Commented Feb 4, 2013 at 19:59
  • 12
    By extension, let's do a 1400/week repcap instead of 200/day. :P
    – Mysticial
    Commented Feb 4, 2013 at 19:59
  • 4
    I deliberately didn't extend it to rep or delete votes @Mysticial :-).
    – ben is uǝq backwards
    Commented Feb 4, 2013 at 20:00
  • Precisely @LittleBobbyTables and by extension. I've had a difficult day at work I'm just going to bed... doesn't matter I've saved 45 votes for later.
    – ben is uǝq backwards
    Commented Feb 4, 2013 at 20:01
  • 12
    @Mysticial - Downside would be the feeling of depression after blowing through a week's worth of close votes on a Monday morning :-)
    – Adam Rackis
    Commented Feb 4, 2013 at 20:09
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    The size of the close votes queue is intimidating to me, and I tend to only go plow through that queue when I'm in a very good mood around once or twice a week, leaving tons of close votes that never get used the rest of the week. Would be nice to be able to use them all at that time.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Feb 4, 2013 at 20:11
  • 1
    I don't think this can lead to destructive behavior when considered individually, but what if five people or more conspire to concentrate all these close votes on a few targets? Couldn't that do at least some temporary damage?
    – Frédéric Hamidi
    Commented Feb 4, 2013 at 20:13
  • 14
    +1, because using a flamethrower for a day is more fun/effective than using a pea shooter for a week.
    – user200500
    Commented Feb 4, 2013 at 20:17
  • They can do that already @FrédéricHamidi; what's the difference?
    – ben is uǝq backwards
    Commented Feb 4, 2013 at 20:45
  • 5
    There's a workaround: Get yourself a diamond ;)
    – yannis
    Commented Feb 4, 2013 at 20:49
  • @ben, 350 questions closed instead of 50? I mean, we can always reopen them, but it will take more work (okay, it will take the same amount of work but concentrated in far shorter timespan) and maybe not scale as well. Unless we can also use a week's worth of reopen votes in one go.
    – Frédéric Hamidi
    Commented Feb 4, 2013 at 20:50
  • 1
    No @FrédéricHamidi, 100 closed in one go. I'm deliberately not asking for everyone to have all their weeks close votes in one go; for one thing you might use them all and have none left for the end of the week.
    – ben is uǝq backwards
    Commented Feb 4, 2013 at 20:57
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    On SO @Yannis? Far too much work. The people who do it are far more brave than I am.
    – ben is uǝq backwards
    Commented Feb 4, 2013 at 20:58
  • @ben, ah, sorry, I did not understand your Max column should be interpreted that way. So it would be capped to 100 votes per day. Why this number and not 75 or 150? (I'm asking because I wonder if it's personal preference or the result of some analysis.)
    – Frédéric Hamidi
    Commented Feb 4, 2013 at 21:02
  • It's enough to enable a significant number of close votes on a couple of days but still have some enough to be useful for rest of the week @Fréd. I'm not wedded to the number it just seemed a sensible suggestion.
    – ben is uǝq backwards
    Commented Feb 4, 2013 at 21:06

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It'd be cool if we could "roll over" unused votes (limited to a max number/time) so that, for example, if I was super busy for 3-15 days & made no votes because I had no time... Then 1 day when I had the bandwidth and time to write some quality things or send out some overdue votes, I could compile and do.

I appreciate the spam control but agree there could be more creative options with which votes are hoarded/allocated .

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