I know that we have some related discussion about retracting and re-close-voting in:

In those, the biggest reasons for not allowing changing the reason for close votes are:

  • once a close-vote has been cast, the particular reason doesn't really matter that much, so changing the reason doesn't really matter all that much, since a close vote is a close vote; and
  • allowing the ability to retract a close vote and subsequently cast another close vote would provide a mechanism to circumvent close vote expiration.

There's one case that isn't covered all that well by these, however, and it's bitten me a few times. Sometimes, a question isn't specific enough (too broad) or doesn't provide enough information about the problem (not an MVCE, doesn't provide runnable code, etc.). It's really easy to vote to close these for those corresponding reasons, and then realize a few minutes later, "wait a minute, I think I remember a very similar question…" In some cases, it's possible to find a duplicate that would solve the asker's question, and would help other users who find this question to find the other question. But if we've already voted to close for other reasons, it's now impossible to change the close vote to a close-as-duplicate vote.

I ran into this recently in SPARQL query to find only one value using the attribute where I initially voted to close as off-topic (probably for "code seeking debugging help…", but I can't actually get into the sub-dialog to see what the specific vote was, which is another issue), but then subsequently realized that it's answered by Extract all types and their labels in English from DBPedia. I even have a gold badge in that tag, and could have closed as a duplicate immediately if I had only close voted as a duplicate first.

So, I'd propose either:

  • allow all users to change their close votes to a close-as-duplicate vote; or
  • allow gold badge users within a tag to change the their close vote into a close-as-duplicate vote.
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    Just ran into this today where I cv'ed as a typo and then found a perfect dupe. Coudln't hammer it since I already voted. Now 3 other people (there was an existing vote before I voted) had to vote to close. Would be nice to be able to change only to a dupe. – NathanOliver Sep 23 '16 at 12:09
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    @NathanOliver Yes, and this hits me especially hard some of the tags in which I have a gold badge are very low traffic, meaning that the dupehammer is very useful in keeping tags clean. For instance, in the question that I linked to (asked yesterday) there are only 26 views, and still only the initial close vote that I posted. The duplicate answers the question, but now there's a significant chance that it won't be closed at all. – Joshua Taylor Sep 23 '16 at 12:11
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    Just to let you know if you find a question that you really think needs to be closed you can always request a close vote review in the SOCVR chat room. You can ask them to take a look at it and if someone agrees they may also vote to close. – NathanOliver Sep 23 '16 at 12:14
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    For those times when the op clarifies a question I cv'd as "needs mcve" and it becomes an obvious dupe, this would be really useful. – davidism Sep 23 '16 at 14:56
  • Meh... I find that most of those lacks mcve to dupe conversion doesn't contribute to the wealth of keywords of a problem since most would've found the dupeif they did a mcve since the start, and therefore doesn't make any sense to .close as dupe. – Braiam Sep 23 '16 at 21:34
  • @Braiam the subjectivity is killing me. If it is a debugging question without an mcve, close it as such. If it is a dupe, close it as such. Simple simple. Objectivity is the key here. Too much subjectivity with close reasons just leads to confusion. – user4639281 Sep 23 '16 at 22:26
  • @TinyGiant I'd agree with you, but roomba has a taste for non-dupe posts. – Andras Deak Sep 25 '16 at 14:13

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