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The way I read the question guidelines, I thought that all questions asked here should be about robotics and have one correct answer. Accordingly, I have been flagging every question that doesn't meet this thumb rule.

My issue is that I flag the question and it appears to me that nothing ever happens after that point, despite the fact that my profile states I have raised 12 helpful flags. I say it appears that nothing happens because I raise flags for questions to be closed, but it doesn't appear that any question I've ever flagged has been closed or put on hold.

Just as a prime, recent example, there was this question about how "neurotypicals" perceive "Aspies" (author's words), which I flagged for closure and commented that the question would be better off in cognitive science. I didn't down vote it because it is a good question, it just doesn't belong here.

That said, someone else down voted it AND Mark Omo said he was flagging it for closure as well, but the question is STILL open.

So I guess my question is, how does a question get closed? I thought I was flagging a question for a moderator to review and maybe act on. Is this the case, or is there some threshold of closure flags required to close a question?

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Closing a question requires five votes to close. You need 500 reputation to vote to close. Additionally closure is immediate when a moderator votes to close, when the asker validates a duplicate suggestion, or when someone with a gold tag badge in one of the question's applicable tags closes as duplicate.

When you cast a close flag, that doesn't directly contribute to the votes to close the question. Instead this puts the question in the close review queue, where users with 500 rep can vote to close or to keep open. Your flag is marked helpful as soon as one user votes to close. Up to 4 more votes may still be required before the question gets closed, and the question may not get closed at all if other users vote to leave the question open.

For more information, see the review FAQ and the closure FAQ on the main meta. See also Ninefingers's guide to closure.

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  • $\begingroup$ Ah I understand. I've tried to flag a question multiple times, if I see it remain open and people are bumping/responding to it, but my options to flag ate greyed out if I've already flagged it. I assume this functionality is in purpose so I've avoided spamming flags, but it's really frustrating to have to scroll past so much clutter to get to good questions. $\endgroup$
    – Chuck Mod
    Commented Jun 8, 2015 at 22:15
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Yes, it looks like you are doing the correct thing, but closure requires 5 close votes or one close vote from a diamond moderator.

Flags recommending closure cause the post to be added to the close review queue though, rather than be sent to the moderator queue, since on most stack exchange sites, there are enough users with close privileges to deal with closures without requiring moderator intervention.

Unfortunately, on a small site like robotics this is resulting in too few people seeing your recommendations.

The solution is for moderators such as myself to keep a closer eye on the review queues and not rely solely on the moderator queue.

Thanks for bring this to our attention Chuck.

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    $\begingroup$ Just to echo this... we try our best to keep on top of things, and appreciate the help of our community who Edit and Flag posts. $\endgroup$
    – Andrew Mod
    Commented Aug 7, 2015 at 15:27

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