Ban or delay close votes from users who answered a question

Question

Where a user has answered a question, I propose that either

that user cannot vote to close the question

or

the user's close vote ability is suspended on that question for one week

Conversely, a user who answers a question should be banned or delayed from casting a close vote on that question. Any earlier close vote on that question from that user should be automatically cancelled when they post the answer.

Ability to comment, request closing of the question in meta threads, and to do anything except add a close vote would not be affected. Logically the same request applies to delete votes, but if there are subtle problems with applying it to both I am primarily talking about close votes.

There are several reasons one might want this enforced as a feature [see first revision, or some of the comments here], but I am also posting this question to invite discussion of what "social norms" might exist about the use of the close and delete votes in parallel with answers.

Answer 1

I think it should be community norm that one can either answer or vote to close but not both.

The reason for this is quite simply that it feels inappropriate to me to use for oneself an opition (answering the question) and at the same time to do something the main or essentially sole purpose is to take this opition away for everybody (else).

To implement this into the software might have some issues to it, since as others have pointed out there can be exceptions, but as a general principle the above should be the community-norm, in my opinion. (On main and on meta.)

I think this is also something that can reasonably be implemented just by agreement (opposed to things for down-votes, say) since at least when/if the close-vote takes effect everybody can see who voted and thus the violation of the agreement would become visible to everybody.

If in some specific case somebody feels the need to deviate from this general principle, it would feel appropriate to me they provide in each such case at least a somewhat detailed justifcation for doing this.

Since other SE communities got mentioned, I will mention thta on MO (main, the meta in this form is so recent there was not much discussion yet) it is rather community-norm not to answer and to close. Also, the links suggest it is rather considered like so on SO.

Answer 2

Proposals to this effect actually predate math.SE, they was first brought up four years ago on meta.SO: Closing Etiquette: Why Do Some Answer *and* Close? (current score +55). This Linked column of that thread contains several later threads on the same topic. Nothing ever came out of it. From scanning the threads, it seems that the majority expectation is that closed questions will be eventually deleted, taking the answer with them.

Perhaps this is indeed a better solution: delete closed questions on meta (other than duplicates). I don't think that meta would lose anything valuable this way.

Answer 3

I don't think this is a good feature request. I will address this in the context of the meta site first, and then in the context of the main site. (Mostly because I deem this request meta-related more than it is main-related.)

Meta

1. Context. It can happen, and it has, that a user posts several threads which are linked by an invisible chain. However the discussions in the comments will often reveal this chain, to those users who actually read those discussions, which on meta can span over 60 or more comments. Sometimes each question can be seen as a reasonable question on its own in a cursory glance, and without thorough reading of the comments.

   I believe that people who are not following this context can be misled by these facts. They may vote to reopen immediately after reading the thread, without reading its comment thread (which may, or may not include links to previous questions). They may also be oblivious to a particular history that a particular user has in their method of raising topics, or logging complaints on meta.

   All this becomes very dangerous, because it can (and does, sometimes) end up with threads which shouldn't be posted in the first place, being kept open.

2. Relevance. In the previous, and most relevant scenario described above, it is possible that each question has a relevant question. These questions, as I remarked, can be reasonable on their own (if presented carefully), and each may merit an answer. I don't see the harm in someone who is fully aware of the context of the question posting an answer as well as a vote to close.

   In some of the cases, indeed the answer can be sometimes the explanation for the closure of the question (as well other questions within the same chain-posting).

3. Alternatives. In the comments to this proposal there has been several suggestions on how to handle such cases.

   1. The first was to post an answer explaining why a question should be closed. Directly. This makes no sense. If someone posts a question about A and receives an answer as to why their question should be closed, then the whole concept of Q&A system for the meta site is fundamentally flawed (which it very well may be!), and I know that I wouldn't have accepted such situation. Moreover, as a rebuttal another answer as to why the thread should be kept open (or reopened) may be posted.

      All this just contributes to cluttering the topic and derailing it further away from its purpose. In the end you have a question with answers which are not even relevant to its topic. That goes directly to undermine the philosophy of a Q&A system. And I strongly object to that.

   2. The other suggestion was to post comments requesting others to close the thread (at least in the case of a chain-post; where the solution is to answer one post and link it in the comments to the others). I find that to be demeaning and offensive. I can't see myself posting something like "This should be closed/deleted", even as a comment (not to mention as an answer like in the previous part), unless I feel that the post is extremely bad (in a case of a reopened thread, or undeleted thread, it's slightly different). And I will answer-close-delete much sooner than that.

      I don't know if I'm the only one who feels this way, but I have a very strong feeling about it. I find the idea of such comment to be insulting both to the OP and to the commenter. On the other hand, when someone starts reading a thread and they see that there are standing closing votes, they will read it slightly more critically, and consider whether or not to vote as well.

Main

1. Duplicates. It can happen, and it does happen that one posts an answer before knowing it is a duplicate (in fact, it happened to me just this evening). In that case, I don't see the harm of the user voting to close. I don't feel that the user should delete their answer in that case (not to mention that the whole delete-to-regain-closing-vote is flawed and open to exploitation). I also recall once that I voted to close a question as a duplicate (I was the first voter, too), but then I decided that there is more to say on the topic. I posted an answer which I think was quite good. Certainly this cannot be an isolated situation, and I am sure that others has been in that place before.

2. Bad questions. It might also be the case that a user has post a relatively vague question, which when read can be understood as a particular question. Upon posting an answer, a long and tedious conversation begins in the comments with the OP, upon whoever is following it (and often it might be just the OP and the answerer) it becomes apparent that the question should be closed (because it's a crank, or otherwise). In that case, who is a better candidate to post the first closure vote than the answerer themselves?

There are probably other reasons to answer-close-delete a post, but I feel that those five a sufficient to poke some holes in the reasoning of this feature request.

Answer 4

I downvoted the Question because I don't think it fully addresses scenarios where a User might both Answer and vote to close a Question. This is in keeping with the sense of downvoting on Meta to indicate disagreement, rather than as a complaint about the Question's quality/scope/topic.

I assume the proposal concerns Questions on the Main site (Math.SE), so I won't try to apply the notion to Meta (other than to deny being one of the votes to close on this Question).

One scenario that I think is fully within the Community norms is where a User first votes to close a Question, either as poor quality or duplicate, but then the Question becomes clarified in Comments or edited (by OP or others) to make it acceptable. The User then sees that they can provide a good Answer and do so.

I may have done that once myself but not recently enough for me to have a clear recollection. However I do recall this recent Answer I posted on a Question that I voted to close as Duplicate. First I'd want you to note that I made that Answer Community Wiki to avoid an appearance of gaming the reputation system. Second I'd want you to consider that few members were in as much of a position as I to spot the duplication, adding weight to ones responsibility to do something about it. Third I am working on folding the new information posted there back into a revised Answer on the original Question, unravelling the existing literature references.

My preference would be not to automate a mutual exclusion of answering and voting to close, because of the complexity of accounting for cases like the above. I'd trust in the Community's feedback and moderation processes to handle Users who abuse those opportunities for reputation gain.