up vote 2 down vote favorite

I asked a question regarding joining 2 avi files using a GUI, and someone else earlier asked how to do that, but using the CLI. Another not-so-careful user decided to vote to close, and I suspect that this person didn't actually read each question well enough, so she thought that it was an exact duplicate. If such a person would have left a Comment, I could have pointed that out.

sidenote: I would have preferred it if the original Question didn't restrict the Answer to CLI to avoid this sort of thing.

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up vote 5 down vote

Just ignore the close vote. The question will stay open as long as it does not collect four more close votes (or one close vote from a moderator).

As long as four more voters (or one moderator) do not make the same misinterpretation of your intent, the existing close vote(s) will eventually expire.

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  • 2
    correct, close votes (and reopen votes) auto-expire after 2 days if they fail to reach the threshold. – Jeff Atwood Jan 1 '11 at 4:02
up vote 1 down vote

Voting to close as a duplicate leaves a comment.

I can't see the history of this question now, and it's been thoroughly messed up by Jeff. For future reference, if there is a vote to close as duplicate without a comment, it means the comment has been deleted — presumably by the close voter when they realized that their vote was mistaken.

It wasn't possible then, but it is now possible to rescind close votes as long as the closure hasn't been carried out.

If there is a comment saying that the question is a duplicate, but you disagree that the question is a duplicate, it's a good idea to leave a comment clearly pointing out the difference. It's often a good idea to edit the question as well, but as long as the in-your-opinion-mistaken close votes are pending, comments are more visible to close vote reviewers.

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up vote 1 down vote

Chris is right, you should just ignore it, but for future reference you don't have to guess; you can click the "close" link to see exactly what people have voted for. If they voted for "exact duplicate", you can click that to see which posts have been voted as duplicates. You were right; somebody voted to close as a duplicate of the CLI question:

Screenshot of the close dialog

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  • I didn't guess. I saw the close reason. – Tshepang Jan 2 '11 at 9:14
  • This is something I did not notice. Clicking there always gives the feeling that one is actually going to vote for closing the question. Hence people will not try as they are not sure they can back out. And I have been on SE for 5 years, rather active in some areas, but not much of a closer (so many people seem happy to do it). – babou Aug 6 at 14:22

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