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This question: How do I react when a girl I like has a new haircut that I don't like very much?

was closed with 2 votes to close. I was under the impression that there were more votes needed to close questions. I do not think it is right for two people to be able to close a question with more than 40 upvotes.

I may be misunderstanding the way that it was closed. Is it normal to close questions with 2 votes?

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    Mod privilege ?
    – OldPadawan
    Aug 11, 2017 at 17:58
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    " I do not think it is right for two people to be able to close a question with more than 40 upvotes." Is it right for fourty people to upvoted a question with such obvious problems?
    – user288
    Aug 11, 2017 at 18:54
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    The voting system is a way to see what the users would like to be on the site. I think the results of this question speaks for itself.
    – Joe S
    Aug 11, 2017 at 18:55
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    There's what people want, and then there's this site making the internet a better place. I want to eat cake every day; that doesn't mean it's good for me.
    – user288
    Aug 11, 2017 at 19:05

1 Answer 1

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Update

The question has since been edited. More details for the encounter have been added, which makes the relationship much clearer.

The OP also has added the tag. It's . . . a start. It's not yet clear whether or not we should be using continent tags, but it certainly narrows things down, and in this case, it might work.

I've cast the fourth (and, again, binding) reopen vote.

Original Answer

From a technical standpoint, a moderator can unilaterally close a question. I was that moderator.

I should, though, explain why I closed it.

There were several reasons:

  • A country tag was added to the question by another user in an attempt to make the question less broad. The OP removed the tag and the country information, stating in a comment,

    The goal is not to answer the question only for my specific case, which is my private matter, but also other people who happens to have similar cases.

    However, site policy dictates that questions must specify a culture (1, 2, 3).

  • The question does need a country tag. This is not a question that is going to have the same answer across the world, and I'm extraordinarily skeptical of any claims to the contrary.

  • There was a close vote already there and another flag suggesting closure, which directed me to the question. This wasn't just out of the blue.

I'll add one more note - and if you read any part of this answer, please read this.

This question hit the Hot Network Questions list, meaning it showed up in sidebars across Stack Exchange. The HNQ is often the first path for new users to join a site. It does not always showcase the best questions, and so when users visit a site from the HNQ, they won't get the best of that site. For this reason, we have to hold questions on the HNQ to the highest standards.

Is that always possible? No. Does that mean we should drop our standards for those questions? No.

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  • Could you have voted to close it but not immediately closed it?
    – Joe S
    Aug 11, 2017 at 18:34
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    @JoeS Unfortunately, no. It's been a long-standing feature request for mods to have non-binding votes, but that's been rejected quite a few times in the past. See meta.stackexchange.com/q/41062/274942.
    – HDE 226868
    Aug 11, 2017 at 18:35
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    For the record, I've been a long-time advocate of allowing a Moderator to select between voting "as a user" and switching over to a unilateral decision explicitly acting as an administrator/moderator of the site. My opinion on that matter has always been [status-declined] in favor of a belief that, as a Moderator, I should always have more conviction regarding matters of curating content. I gave up on that "acting as a user" versus "acting as a Moderator" distinction a long time ago. Moderators explicitly give up being a regular user of the site. Aug 11, 2017 at 19:06
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    About your requirement about cultures - we're in 2017. We live in a globalized world where everyone wears jeans and t-schirts and there's "idian" and "chinese" restorants all arround here in Europe. Sure cultural differences still exist but they're slimmer as they've never been in human history and getting even slimmer by the second. People are much more different to eachother by their personality than by their nationality. Adding each 190 U.N. country as a tag and forcing users using one of them on every question is stupid. I'd agree having a general "europe" or "1rst world" tag, though.
    – Bregalad
    Aug 11, 2017 at 20:50
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    @Bregalad I suggest you discuss that on one of the questions I linked to.
    – HDE 226868
    Aug 11, 2017 at 21:04
  • @HDE226868 Good idea.
    – Bregalad
    Aug 11, 2017 at 21:06
  • @Bregalad I just saw the edits, by the way. I hadn't seen them when I replied to your previous comment. Thanks.
    – HDE 226868
    Aug 11, 2017 at 21:21
  • @HDE226868 thanks for this link - I wouldn't have pinged you if I saw this first :D
    – user57
    Aug 11, 2017 at 21:25

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