I seem to be noticing a trend recently that some questions may be getting closed more slowly, or not all.

See css attribute selector not working on a tag. This is a pure typo ("bacground" instead of "background"). Yet this question has received only one close vote (mine) in 11 hours. At this rate, it will probably stay open forever.

Is it possible that folks who once would click through to such a question and spend a minute figuring out that it was a typo and close it as such are simply suffering from low-quality question fatigue, and not even bothering?

On one "answer" to this (or maybe it was a different) question where I commented that this was a good candidate for a "typo" close vote, the answerer responded that he wasn't even aware of that close reason. Perhaps the problem is that the "non-repro/typo" reason is buried under "off-topic". Would it possibly be useful to "promote" the "non-repro/typo" reason to the top level so it is more visible, at the same level as "too broad" etc.?

I'd hammer such questions as a dup of some canonical question about "my CSS is not working" due to misspelled property names or invalid property values, giving suggested ways to track down such problems, but don't have a gold badge in CSS.

  • There are other processes that clean up questions, so it is not a given that even unclosed posts stay around forever. And if no-one visits the question or votes to close it if they do, does it matter? – Martijn Pieters Jan 7 '17 at 18:40
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    The post does go to the close vote review queue. That queue is notoriously full; you could help by reviewing some posts every day. You could also bring such posts to the attention of the SO Close Vote Reviewers chat room. – Martijn Pieters Jan 7 '17 at 18:43
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    An interesting question, maybe, for the up-and-coming Developer Survey: "Do you take the time to close-vote questions? (a) Yes, as often as I can / (b) No, why should I? Those questions aren't bothering anyone, do they? / (c) how do i close a q plz?" – usr2564301 Jan 7 '17 at 18:43
  • The post in question is still actively being reviewed. – Martijn Pieters Jan 7 '17 at 18:44
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    I gave up reviewing some time ago, and I'm sure I'm not the only one! – Lightness Races in Orbit Jan 8 '17 at 2:58
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    Gold tag users should have the ability to cast a binding close vote in blatant cases. Not just for duplicates. – Oriol Jan 8 '17 at 17:09
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    @Oriol they are afraid of the gold badge users, fearing that every one is conspiring an abuse. So they won't. – Your Common Sense Jan 10 '17 at 10:31

No time to write a detailed answer right now, I'm afraid. So...

  • The number of closed questions has stayed roughly the same for the past couple of years.
  • Questions are closed faster now than they used to be.
  • There are always more questions that probably should be closed than actually get closed. This has been true since '09.

A moderator could dig out more details from analytics if they wished.

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    Surely you don't actually mean the number of closed questions, but rather, the ratio of closed questions, right? – Cody Gray Jan 8 '17 at 4:51
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    and we're still stuck at around 7-10k post waiting in close review. – Walfrat Jan 8 '17 at 14:18

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