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This question is somewhat related to an older question on Meta SE here and directly related to my latest question on Quant Meta SE here.

The Quant SE is a relatively small community compared to some other SEs, with only two admins and only a handful of users with reputation above 5K.

Additionally, based on my experience, only a handful of "higher-reputation users" (say rep > 1000) regularly dedicate their time to answering questions (perhaps 10, sometime more, other times less). Quant SE regularly receives "burts" or lower-quality questions that should not feature on the site, mainly for the following reasons:

  • too basic
  • off topic
  • simply "low quality", poorly phrased, or copy-paste homework (I am sure many other SE communities "suffer" from the same)
  • career advice
  • many other reasons

Due to the relatively small size of the active community on Quant SE and only two admins, I believe it would be strongly beneficial if high-reputation users (say above 5K), could either:

  • single-handedly close low quality questions (until the OP improves the question, or permanently, if the question is not improved)
  • make the low quality question invisible (until the OP improves the question, or permanently, if the question is not improved)

Such proposal hopefully doesn't seem "too far fetched", since 10K users on Stack Overflow can single-handedly delete questions (Edit: I learned in the comments that multiple votes would still be required, so ignore the word "single-handedly").

(so being able to close questions or make these invisible until they are improved seems like a reasonable "lower-level" privilege for - say - 5K reputation users).

Many users on Quant SE raised a similar point in the past (for example here), and the general feeling is that:

  • multiple users having to vote first to close a question is time-consuming and a more agile way of dealing with low quality questions would be preferred
  • with only two admins, it would be beneficial to take some burden off their shoulders (they do an amazing job, but they can't just spend their time deleting low quality posts or closing questions)
  • low quality questions distract and degrade the Quant SE website (as pointed out in the example above, which I reference here one more time, some users will just naturally burn out after having to sift through really basic or low quality posts day in, day out, let alone that some finance professionals will not want to be associated with Quant SE if there are too many low quality, poorly phrazed or basic questions): therefore some Quant SE community contributors (including myself) would prefer if some low quality questions could be made invisible by higher-rep trusted community users, until they are improved (or permanently deleted, if they are not improved). Or, at the very least, it would be beneficial if low quality questions could be single-handedly closed by high-rep trusted community members (until the OP improves the question, or permanently, if the question is not improved).

I open the floor to comments and further questions, regarding my proposal,

Edit: from the comments below, the Hardware Recommendations SE model would seem great for Quant SE: if only 1 vote is required to close a question but then again only 1 other vote is required to open said question, that seems a fair and agile way to deal with low quality posts.

Alternatively, the Three voting closure linked in the comments would be an improvement too.

Could someone please clearly guide me on how I can request either of these for implementation on Quant SE?

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    You might be interested in three vote closure testing. – Glorfindel 23 hours ago
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    "since 10K users on Stack Overflow can single-handedly delete questions" we can't single handedly delete, it still takes 3 – user400654 23 hours ago
  • @user400654: apologies, my mistake, I was under the wrong impression then. In any case, I still wanted to run my proposal here, to get some feedback. – Jan Stuller 23 hours ago
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    Yep, it was just clarification. being unable to handle problematic posts because there's not enough people interested or capable of doing so is certainly a problem. There are a few tools that can be accessed sooner than 10k, but they too require a bit of work to access (for example, gold badge dupe hammering.) If it hasn't already occured, i think a good first step would be using that site's meta and seeing if you/yall can get people interesting in joining in on the effort to keep the place organized. Closure/Voting are the most useful tools for this, and they're easier to access. – user400654 23 hours ago
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    Also, everyone with enough rep should downvote low quality questions. With enough downvotes (3 IIRC) they disappear from the frontpage as well. – Luuklag 22 hours ago
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    In addition to Glorfindel's comment: 3 votes isn't the minimum for that. This experiment on Hardware Recommendations already used single vote closure. The benefit of that is that it also set the reopen vote threshold to match number of close votes needed: That way questions don't end up in eternal limbo if they should be reopened. – Tinkeringbell♦ 22 hours ago
  • @Luuklag: agreed, although I have to admit myself that I feel "mean" or even "bad" downoting questions unless they are completely pathetic, and having to wait until a question receives -4 for it to become "invisible": also, the down-voting is somewhat "irreversible". I would rather close a question until it's improved or simply make it invisible until it's improved: that gives the OP a chance to modify the question, without alienating the OP by down-voting the question to the point of "no return". – Jan Stuller 22 hours ago
  • @Tinkeringbell: that looks great! So it it's possible to have this feature on Hardware Recommendations, would it also be possible to have it (or at least test it) on Quant SE? – Jan Stuller 22 hours ago
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    @JanStuller I'm not sure what the timelines on this are, I don't know any more than what is in Catija's answer to the post Glorfindel linked... I guess your best bet is having a bit of discussion on Quant SE meta about what you think the threshold for the site should be, then write a feature request asking for that threshold. Once that has gained support, you can ask a moderator to escalate it using the status-review tag, and that should hopefully put you on the list for when SE is finally going to continue rolling this out ;) – Tinkeringbell♦ 22 hours ago
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    @JanStuller there is nothing mean about downvoting. Its the mist important curation tool there is on the network. After a post has veen edited you can change your vote if needed. You can subscribe to the question to be notifies about edits. – Luuklag 18 hours ago
  • You keep using the word "admin". What is it? There is no such thing in Stack Exchange. The site has three moderators, not two, so you mean something else, no idea what. – Shadow Wizard is Vaccinating 5 hours ago
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    @ShadowWizardisVaccinating: I meant moderators. If we have three in fact on Quant SE and not 2, then I'd say that only two are active. – Jan Stuller 5 hours ago
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Letting ordinary users, close with single vote is bad idea. That's what moderators are for.

If you think the site needs more moderators, start a new discussion on the per-site meta, gather ideas of more users, and ask the existing moderators to escalate it to the CM team through the proper channels.

If the moderators are not active, contact the team directly via the "Contact" form (see footer on any site) and let them know. Keep in mind, in nobody is willing to step up and moderate the site, the site will be closed. Letting ordinary users do moderators job without being moderators is just wrong and won't fix anything.

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  • This sounds like the right fix for the problem indeed. – Luuklag 5 hours ago
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    I accept that 1 vote to close a question (even though from a high-rep trusted, user) might be verging on moderation right, and that might not be appropriate (even though the linked experiment on Hardware SE seems to have worked well). But perhaps 2 or 3 votes, instead of 5, would be an improvement and would not (in my opinion) cause the limited number of active users to burn out (as some have done in the past). – Jan Stuller 5 hours ago
  • That is also very much possible @JanStuller, then you should start a discussion about that on your sites Meta, and once concensus is reached ask your sites mods to escalate it to the CM team. – Luuklag 5 hours ago
  • @Luuklag: understood, thank you. In the post linkedin (i.e. here, we've sort of had that discussion (unlikely many more will contribute, since - as I alluded to - there is probably only 10 active users that would actually look to comment on our Meta site). The consensus is that we'd prefer 2 or 3 users, instead of 5, to be able to close a question. So the next stage would be for the Mod to escalate? – Jan Stuller 4 hours ago
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    @JanStuller I would make it an explicit question, in a new question. Something that simply states: Should we lower the number of close votes needed to close a question to X. That way it is unambiguous what people voted for, and what the concensus is. Your linked question is more or less a discussion that you have to many low quality questions, and that something should be done about it, without being exact what should be done. – Luuklag 4 hours ago
  • @Luuklag: Ok, thank you, I will go ahead and give that a shot. – Jan Stuller 3 hours ago
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  1. Users with 10k on the SO can not single-handedly delete questions. They can vote for the deletion of closed questions, but it needs at least 3 deletion votes. Only mods can single-handedly delete questions (happens rarely), and their OP, if it has not yet multiple answers or an upvoted answer.

  2. Users with a golden tag badge (tag score >= 1000) can single-handedly close or reopen questions as dupe (except if they did not edit its tags before). But that is so also on other sites (some sites have no users with golden tag badge or only a very little).

On the hardwarerecs SE, even a single vote is enough to close or reopen questions, and being a beta site, everybody with >= 500 rep can do that. I think it is too dangerous, what if I mislook something? Anyways it is a bitter feeling to cause harm, particularly that a mod nearly on the spot appears and also deletes it. I would be more happy to get only a fifth of this bitterness. I think the HwRecs would do it better, if at least 2 votes would be needed and the mods would not do this.

Android SE is the opposite side: they have not enough reviewers, probably because they too early left beta. For example, sometimes it takes weeks to get a decision for my edit suggestions. I believe, that site should get back the beta privilege levels (but without an actual downgradation).

About your site: the problem with such power is that it leads to misuse, and tends to fix a small group of power users in the site. They avoid others to get high rep, because they close the well-answerable questions.

In my opinion, the major, and maybe only, factor to decide the power of the reviewers, and the reputation levels for the votes, is that the site has enough reviewers (voters) or not. Your post states that you have enough reviewers and votes. In my opinion, this is an argument for the opposite: to decrease their power or to increase the privilege levels.

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    "They avoid others to get high rep, because they close the well-answerable questions" sounds more like a conspiracy theory than a cogent argument against changing the close vote thresholds on Quant SE. – Rob 20 hours ago

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