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I have noticed that when a is carried out and the Question is finally reopened, some users edit their posts to include a "(REOPENED)" on the title of the Meta Question.

I think I like this practice, but I was wondering what do you think about it? Have you done it?

In any case, should we be doing this edits more often? I see that some Meta questions that actually ended in a reopen do not have that modification added to the title.

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Yes, this is the direction we were given by a moderator.

This came up in a Meta post by Monica because people (myself included) were requesting for completed reopen requests. She indicated that this tag is only intended for bug and feature requests that require action by a moderator or SE staff. Instead, she recommended the following:

So what should you do to indicate that the matter is resolved? Ideally, report the results in an answer and then accept it; an accepted answer is the usual signal for "no more help needed". Alternatively, you can edit the title of the post to add something like "[REOPENED]". If it changes again later, you can edit again.

Though, as Monica pointed out in a comment, no one seems to following the ideal advice from above. While the [REOPENED] label is acceptable, maybe we should start doing more of the answer/accept method first.

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    I agree. Funny thing, I have already favorited and UVted that post from Monica... didn't know that was the origin of this. I also see that you are the one who most actively carries out this direction, and actually why I asked this meta post. – DarkCygnus♦ Dec 7 '17 at 17:27
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    @DarkCygnus I don't know if that post was the origin of this practice, but it certainly became more common after that. – David K Dec 7 '17 at 17:28
  • So I guess the question now is... should we use parentheses or brackets? lol Brackets make it seem more "official" IMO, as per the [Closed] style – DarkCygnus♦ Dec 7 '17 at 18:43
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    Nobody seems to be following the "ideally" part of that suggestion, it seems. – Monica Cellio Dec 7 '17 at 20:56
  • @MonicaCellio This is actually quite relevant what you point out. The accepting would be actually up to the OP to accept, but in those cases the edit option is available I guess. I also suppose both measures can be applied at the same time, right? – DarkCygnus♦ Dec 7 '17 at 21:56
  • @DarkCygnus yeah, either works, and that's a good point that only the OP can accept while anybody can edit. A part of me would rather not see a page full of "[REOPENED]" down the front page because it feels a little jarring (maybe it'd be better if it were at the end), but there are good reasons and I'm not going to make a big deal over my personal preference. I wonder what other sites do... – Monica Cellio Dec 7 '17 at 22:08
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Personally I dislike it because I don't think it looks good (thanks to the combination of (), all caps, redundancy* and length).

*: Redundancy when used in combination with "reopen", which it usually is. If used without "reopen", we're left with a somewhat nonsensical title containing what looks like a tag and then I suppose simply the title of the question the post is seeking to reopen.

I'd prefer simply [Done], e.g.:

[Done] Reopen “optional internal interview”

The ideal way to deal with this IMO would be for there to be some functionality to detect when the target question is reopened and then prepend this text automatically without editing the post (such as when [closed] is appended to a closed question). Manually editing the post to add this is clunky (although I suppose this isn't a big and common enough problem for such functionality to be added).

Actually the ideal way to deal with this problem is to have a closer link between discussion of the appropriateness of a question, the question and the reopen (and close?) queues. Perhaps voting to reopen (or Leave Open?) requires a motivation of why (which I'm sure has been suggested before, is fairly simple and may eliminate the need to have reopen posts on Meta). Perhaps this creates a Meta post automatically and links to it from the question and reopen queue. Perhaps it should be more of a freeform discussion (e.g. have a section of meta comments). There are a few options there.

Have we considered just closing the reopen requests after the target post is reopened? Or is that too much of a hassle? Or is it important enough to allow those who object to the reopening to post answers explaining their reasoning, after the post has been reopened?

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  • great poitns. The thing is that a post may go through open and close periods, so how can we programmatically determine when a post has been definitely closed or opened. However seems to be an interesting idea, at least the auto [Done] part (so it only gives freedom to users to start those threads, what if we don't want a post reopened)... I also think that "Done" is a bit ambiguous. Done what? Closing? Reopenong? ... maybe some other word choice? – DarkCygnus♦ Dec 8 '17 at 14:40
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    @DarkCygnus SE can link questions to their reopen requests, and then have a trigger on the closing or reopening of the question which marks the reopen request appropriately. I suppose something similar can also be done by us common folk using 10k tools, if that's updated sufficiently often. "[Done] Reopen..." seems fairly clear to me (reopening is done, if some other action was taken, the text should not be "Done"). – Bernhard Barker Dec 9 '17 at 11:42
  • I like editing in the [done] at the end better than the (REOPENED) at the beginning as it currently is. It formats just like when a question is [closed] or [on hold] and just looks better. There are a few questions on the front page that have the [done] "tag", and I think that's what I'll do from now on. – David K Dec 19 '17 at 20:52
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    @DavidK The only problem I have with putting it at the end is that "[done]" might get cut off in the featured posts, leading to people not being able to see whether or not the related question has been reopened without visiting the Meta post. – Bernhard Barker Dec 19 '17 at 20:59
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what do you think about it?

Personally I like it.

Have you done it?

No.. but only because I've only ever posted one such request and some scamp beat me to the edit

In any case, should we be doing this edits more often?

It makes sens to me, that way it saves any users from going over to cast a VTRO when it's already been done.

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  • What about the other questions I asked? – DarkCygnus♦ Dec 7 '17 at 16:47
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    I actually just went to my recent meta Q to do that edit (so I could answer "yes" to "have I ever done it") only to see that you had already done so! – motosubatsu♦ Dec 7 '17 at 16:49
  • Have edited in answers to your other questions :) – motosubatsu♦ Dec 7 '17 at 16:51
  • Lol, yes I saw that I casted the final reopen vote so I thought that convenient. I am a quick scamp :v – DarkCygnus♦ Dec 7 '17 at 16:52
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    Pretty much my take on it. That prefix helps save a lot of time. We've gotten quite a lot more of these threads lately (which is good) and they're also usually handled very quickly and efficiently (also good) so it makes sense to mark them as "completed". Those threads don't usually serve much purpose after the reopen. – Lilienthal♦ Dec 7 '17 at 17:02
  • @Lilienthal what if the post gets closed again?... I think the edit should be done when a trend has settled. What do you think about that? – DarkCygnus♦ Dec 7 '17 at 17:11
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    @DarkCygnus Sure, I wouldn't add it on questions that have proven to be divisive. But we very rarely get those. The vast majority of these questions are cases where the OP left out details in the first version, a core question was missing or the wording had to be improved. – Lilienthal♦ Dec 7 '17 at 17:13

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