5

Today a new answer was posted on Can't start a numbered list on a number other than 1. The issue seems to have been fixed since 2014 by default on all sites.

This makes the issue described in the question not reproducible anymore. In the question itself, there is a line trying to demonstrate the problem which currently doesn't make much sense:

  1. this should be a 2. not a 1. as I wrote 2. but it changes automatically to 1.

If that is not the definition of "not reproducible" I don't know what is...

Why was my flag on this question declined?

Improve this question
1
  • 1
    While less official, the other answer explains this at greater length: > "By that logic, whenever a bug is fixed we should also remove the bug tag because there is no longer a bug, it has been fixed.". ... "However, once a question is "completed" and has received an adequate final outcome, we shouldn't change it to another "completed" status based on the previous completed reason. - We'll just be chasing our tails. - That is, "status-completed" is job done, finished, nothing to see here, leave it now.".
    – Rob
    Dec 1, 2021 at 9:28

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
15

Close flags are declined when the outcome of the Close Votes review queue is Leave Open, while nobody has cast a confirming number of close votes (one if hammered, a quorum otherwise) with the same reason as you in the mean time (inside or out of the queue).

Why did I leave that question open?

  1. Bugs/feature requests which have been addressed by a deliberate change in the system should be tagged , not closed as not reproducible.
  2. Other users voted to close it as a duplicate of an older question, which is generally fine, except that the newer question had an authoritative answer by a (then) staff member. So I chose to close it the other way around. If I had closed it as a duplicate, your flag would be marked helpful.

To clarify, while it is visible in the Close Vote review queue that there are pending close flags (versus just pending close votes), it's not always visible who cast the flag(s) or which reasons they chose (and it's never obvious).

Here is an example from Stack Overflow:

enter image description here

(the Needs more focus is a flag, not a close vote)

Improve this answer
11
  • 1
    On multiple occasions I've had flags declined which have been on posts that've gotten closed. There's something not right here.
    – W.O.
    Nov 29, 2021 at 15:47
  • @ARogueAnt. if the review is completed (and results in a Leave Open) and the question is closed outside the queue, the flag stays declined.
    – Glorfindel Mod
    Nov 29, 2021 at 15:47
  • 1
    Oh I wasn't aware of that policy regarding fixed bugs (although I don't completely understand/agree with it...). Thanks for the link. I did see your comment on the question-in-question and guessed it has something to do with it, but wasn't sure what
    – Tomerikoo
    Nov 29, 2021 at 15:48
  • @Tomerikoo you're welcome. I didn't decline it deliberately, but I think the system was right in declining it in this case.
    – Glorfindel Mod
    Nov 29, 2021 at 15:52
  • @Glorfindel Sure, I completely understand. I don't mind the declined flag (it is basically the first one...) just wasn't sure why the question shouldn't be closed with that reason to which you answered as well... I still find it weird though. That quote I put here really makes the question confusing...
    – Tomerikoo
    Nov 29, 2021 at 15:54
  • 1
    I see the "No longer reproducible" close reason used incorrectly quite often (though the confusion is acceptable, imo, because it's not clear when you should NOT use it) - How do you think we can improve that? Should we update the usage guidance field for the close reason?
    – Spevacus
    Nov 29, 2021 at 15:54
  • 1
    @Spevacus I'm not 100% sure but I thought updating the usage guidance would technically make it a new close reason. Which is something we should do if it leads to major problems, but I think the community here is quite good at keeping these open in the review queue (unless, like in this case, a duplicate is found).
    – Glorfindel Mod
    Nov 29, 2021 at 15:57
  • 1
    @Tomerikoo great. It's indeed very confusing since one of the edits made the bug disappear. I'll have a look at what I can do to make it clearer.
    – Glorfindel Mod
    Nov 29, 2021 at 15:58
  • 1
    It can be updated, but it requires a CM to approve (Catija elaborates on that here) - Which is not super ideal. Mods could retire the old close reason and propose and approve (requires one mod to propose and one to approve) a new one in its place.
    – Spevacus
    Nov 29, 2021 at 15:59
  • @Tomerikoo, regarding Glorfindel's comment, I edited the other post and reintroduced the bug; so now it's clearer what the bug being reported is (and hopefully future fixes can't break the edit). Fortunately the example enclosed in code markup ( "{}" ) wasn't updated, so it was only a matter of reintroducing the original information.
    – Rob
    Dec 1, 2021 at 10:39
  • 1
    @Rob I did happen to see your edit (before your comment) and it indeed makes the problem more clear. Thank you. So both questions at least make more sense and I learned the policy about closing bugs (which I'm slowly starting to agree with :))
    – Tomerikoo
    Dec 1, 2021 at 14:28
3

It's a bit of a side effect of how closing as a duplicate works.

  1. You flagged this question, that puts it in the close queue.
  2. The people looking at whether this question should be closed found another question asking the same thing. Then we need to decide whether to close this question as not-reproducible or as a duplicate
  3. The duplicate brigade (including me) were winning.
  4. A moderator then stepped in an decided that the duplication should be the other way round i.e. this question should be the main and the other question the duplicate.
  5. Closing the other question as a duplicate of this automatically clears the flags/closure of this question because we want to avoid question a) being a duplicate of question b) which is then a duplicate of question a)...
Improve this answer
2
  • Point 5 is interesting. Does closing as duplicate always clear the flags/CVotes on the target? I can understand for the duplicate votes, but the rest?
    – Tomerikoo
    Nov 29, 2021 at 15:44
  • 1
    As far as I'm aware it clears all close votes.
    – Robert Longson
    Nov 29, 2021 at 16:37

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .