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In this answer, Thomas Owens says

If 5 users vote, I believe it's majority vote gets the reason. However, if a moderator closes, it's always the moderator's reason.

However, I cast the last close vote on this question and did not observe that behavior - The vote was 2-2 between "asking us to recommend" and "too narrow", and I voted for "too narrow". However, the "asking us to recommend" is the reason that showed up in the close box.

No moderators were involved in the vote.

So, two part question:

  1. Why was the wrong reason displayed?
  2. Why not show both?
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1 Answer 1

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  1. Why was the wrong reason displayed?

It's not the wrong reason, it was 1 of the 2 tied-for-top reasons and we picked one.

  1. Why not show both?

Mainly because this is an exceedingly rare edge case, and it drastically complicates the data structure to store things that way. We store exactly 1 close reason active at a time, this allows us to do a very efficient load of the data needed to display close information. Also, it would be even more confusion to closes that need not exist for such a rare occurrence.

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  • The second point makes a great deal of sense, but I'm still not sure on the first one. After my vote, it wasn't tied-for-top any more. It should have been 3-2 with my vote.
    – Bobson
    Dec 9, 2013 at 18:12
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    @Bobson "too narrow" is a custom reason - we always prefer built-in reasons over "other" close reasons
    – Nick Craver
    Dec 11, 2013 at 16:18
  • Ah, I was wondering if it's what it was. That covers it, thanks!
    – Bobson
    Dec 11, 2013 at 16:40

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