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Quite often, questions in the "reopen" review queue have no explanation at all as to why they should be reopened. Sometimes, it is possible to find a comment along the lines of "voting to reopen because XX" (but finding these comments is tedious), but often there is not even that. If there is no explanation, I most often vote "keep closed" or skip the question, because it is unclear to me why the question should be reopened. I could imagine that I am not the only one doing so. This dynamic doesn't help in (sometimes probably completely justified) efforts of trying to get a question reopened.

So I think it would improve the "reopen" review experience tremendously, if there would be a mandatory field explaining why the question should be reopened. This would enable reviewers to quickly get a grasp of what is going on.

Additional Info for more clarity: I am talking about the "reopen" questions without a substantial edit. As a reviewer, edits to the question are highlighted and thus visible. If there are edits, I can see how some one tried to change the question into a question that better fits in with this site. But about 1/3 of the questions in the reopen queue (a wild guess) do not have info why the question should be reopened nor any edit made to the question. I am talking about these.

All reopen questions should (IMHO) have either

  • substantial edits to make clear why they should be reopened
  • an explanation about why the (unchanged) question should be reopened
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  • Worse yet, The system asks you why it should be "Leave Closed" if you choose that.
    – Nobody
    Nov 26, 2021 at 12:23
  • I'm not exactly an expert in the review queues, but it seems most likely to me that the question(s) you're thinking about are in the review queue after a "substantial edit". Are you asking for substantial edits to be paired with a comment supporting reopening? Generally, questions should be reopened when the reasons for closure are resolved.
    – Bryan Krause Mod
    Nov 26, 2021 at 15:06
  • 1
    @BryanKrause no, I am not talking about the substantially edited "reopen" questions. Those I get: someone has reacted to the reason why the question was closed in the first place and tried to alleviate those shortcomings by editing (which I, as a reviewer can see, because the changes are highlighted). I am talking especially about those reopen questions that have not been edited at all (I would say about one third of the reopen questions have no edit).
    – Sursula
    Nov 26, 2021 at 15:16
  • 4
    @Sursula Got it; if someone votes to reopen a question that hasn't had any edits, then I suppose they're primarily contesting the previous close reason and implying "this question shouldn't have been closed for this close reason". Yes, sometimes they explain the reasoning, too, but it's hard enough to collect reopen votes as it is without adding another barrier.
    – Bryan Krause Mod
    Nov 26, 2021 at 15:49
  • Who would see these comments? Where in the UI would they appear?
    – Buffy
    Nov 27, 2021 at 21:36

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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On the face of it, I don't think I'd approve, though it might depend on the format. We have a lot of users, but only a few are needed to close a question. True, you need a bit of experience here to vote, but we also have some controversial questions.

I think that most of my reopen votes are when I disagree that the question should have been closed in the first place, meaning that I don't think an edit is needed.

But, my worry is that for some questions battles might arise between those wanting a question closed (perhaps they disagree with the premise) and those wanting it reopened. That would be distracting at best and temperature raising at worst.

A standard list (choose from the following...) might be ok, just as we have a list for closing. But open ended reasons might be problematic.

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