See close votes as they come in (possibly as a notification)

Question

I was just writing a nice and long post to a question on meta. Just as I was finishing up, I saw the dreaded No more answers will be accepted banner appear. It was closed. So all that time was wasted drafting the answer due to the closure.

So I would suggest a notification when in the answer pane of new close votes when they happen. That way you can figure out if you're getting close. If you're a 250 rep user, show how many votes there are. If you're not, just show that the post is close to being closed, and to hurry up (perhaps at 4 close votes).

As it stands right now, it is a disincentive to write a good answer to a controversial or possibly duplicated post (which to newer members is hard to know).

Answer 1

It is better not to answer a question that has any valid close votes. If it is not clear that the first 1 or 2 close votes are wrong, just move on and find a better question to answer.

Answer 2

As it stands right now, it is a disincentive to write a good answer to a controversial or possibly duplicated post (which to newer members is hard to know)

There should always be a disincentive to answer a duplicate post. Even if you have the best possible answer to a question, if the question's an exact duplicate of another, your answer should be going to the original question. I don't see the virtue in telling people to "hurry up" and post their answer so that they can farm some rep from a question that shouldn't be answered.

As for controversial posts, those posts are usually indicated by a balance of up/down votes, not close votes. If it's off topic, it shouldn't be answered and the disincentive makes sense.