Violation of policy to close questions?

Question

According to the policy stated in  vote-moderation-queue,  close vote needs  at least a net score of +2 in order for the respective question to be closed:

The net number of close votes on a question need to be 3 for a question to be closed. Note that the proposing close vote is considered as one close vote, unless the poster of the original close vote explicitly states otherwise. Thus, a close vote generally needs a net score of +2 to pass, unless the original close voter retracts the close vote, or otherwise votes against or stands neutral to the vote.

However, it seems to me that questions are being closed without meeting this requirement. Am I right?  Why is this happening? What about moving questions to chat with no consensus?

PS: This question is not about a specific conflict, It is an inquiry about a policy. Don't move it to "Conflict Resolution". I want it to be on Meta.

Comments

 it seems to me that questions are being closed without meeting this requirement. 

Which closed question are you referring to? It is easy to check. 

As for moving questions to chat there are no fixed rules. For example, the post http://physicsoverflow.org/29793/are-quantum-interpretations-physically-meaningful contained a discussion and was not moved.

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From looking at the revision history of this question, the original topic was exclusively the closing of questions.

Discsussions should stick to this original topic, instead of being broadend to include many other things. Moving to chat (which is not a moderation action by the way) should be adressed in a new meta question, if needed.

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@ArnoldNeumaier I'm not sure I understand how questions are closed and the  vote-moderation-queue posts. Are closed questions removed from that post?

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As I understand it, the info on closed questions is hidden when closed. The currently 22 answers that everyone can see are those not-yet-closed questions for which a vote-to-close call exists but the necessary number of votes has not yet been achieved, so that people can vote on them. As a moderator, I can see 8 pages with answers on questions already closed.

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@ArnoldNeumaier Thanks for you reply. It helps.

1) What about http://www.physicsoverflow.org/31315/single-double-experiment-resetting-detector-material-impact ? It is closed, it has only score 1, it is still in vote-moderation-queue. 

2) In vote-moderation-queue, there are answers with the term "[closed]". What does it mean? Are they closed? If so, what is the difference between these answers and the ones that are removed (or hidden) from that post? And  if they are not really closed, what does it mean "[closed]"?

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1) It was closed (and marked [closed]) as being obviously not graduate+, but is still in the queue since it has less than 2 upvotes. I just provided a second upvote since I agree.

2) It means that a moderator closed it for a legitimate reason (as stated on top of the page) with fewer votes than generally necessary, but has not yet public support for the action. If it would be voted down closing would be undone, whereas when the threshold is reached one would have to ask explicitly for reopening the question.

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@ArnoldNeumaier The policy clearly states that the minimum score is 2. Do you agree? The "generally" makes reference to the possibility that the person who open request to close the question doesn't want to close the question, so that a higher that 2 score would be needed. Do you agree?

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I neither made the rules nor wrote the answers; and i am a moderator only since a few weeks and haven't closed myself any question. I was simply trying to make sense of what happened, and wrote my comment accordingly.

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@ArnoldNeumaier As a moderator, can you please tell me if I'm understanding the policy right? Please, tell  me whether or not you agree with my last comment. 

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I can only tell you how I understood the policy, and this is what I have already written.

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It was me who forgot to hide the successful closevote after it had obtained 2 net
upvotes, the question was closed, and it had served its purpose. The
downvote arrived 9h after the question had been closed.
 

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@Dilaton  @ArnoldNeumaier

Dilaton: 

It was me who forgot to hide the successful closevote after it had obtained 2 net
upvotes, the question was closed, and it had served its purpose. The
downvote arrived 9h after the question had been closed.

Come on, Dilaton, this is too much.  The question was closed with only one net upvote. Arnold, don't you have anything to say? Isn't the true more important than protecting moderators?

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@Drake, I am talking about this closevote and the corresponding question.

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@Dilaton And why are you talking about that closevote when we are talking about another one? This one http://www.physicsoverflow.org/31315/single-double-experiment-resetting-detector-material-impact 

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Its only you who perceives and spreads the smell. For the others it is a place to learn and discuss interesting physics. 

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If you think this is an inquiry about policy, you need to phrase it as such. The title still says "Violation of policy". Ironically, you bashed Dilaton below for making the sabre error, except he corrected it. 

Also, I doubt that you really wanted to inquire about policy. See here. 

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@dimension10 A question about my understanding of a policy (which is interpreted in different ways by you and A. Neumaier)  and its possible violation, it's a question about a policy. 

I said that to Dilaton because after you admitted you had violated the policy, he claimed that the policy had not been violated in an answer with no more content that that sentence (no reasons, not a real answer).

Anyway, I'm starting to feel I'm wasting my time because you mods only care about protecting each other. 

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Off-topic comments moved to chat.

Answer 1

Nope. There have been recent cases in which a certain user has downvoted or unvoted a close vote just after the question gets closed, perhaps to incorrectly allege moderator abuse. 

Only rarely do some clearly uncontroversial low level questions (high - school level stuff) get closed with just two votes. 

Comments

1) Yes. About twice, I think, both times by me, and I don't intend to stop. The idea that a question like "how much time does a bowling  ball take to roll down a hill" should be kept in the main page for hours together seems stupid to me. 

2) Anyone with editing privileges can move stuff to chat. You can, too. This had never been a problem. 

3)

4) I'm just saying that anyone who downvoted the thing might have intended to do so. And given that you did raise the issue in meta, I wouldn't be surprised if it were you. 

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Yes, and yes.

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@drake

(2) Sorry, a mistake. I'll remove it once this issue is resolved.

(3) It has a +2 net score now, but I suppose it indeed wasn't when I closed it. Perhaps it looked way too uncontroversially low-level to me, or something. You're right, sorry.

(4) Well, double-slit experiment is pretty much high-school level.

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@drake It's supposed to be removed from the close vote queue right away. My "accusation" was just a side remark, I was guessing that you might have downvoted the "what is quantised" close vote after the question was closed. But you turned out to be taking about a different close vote altogether. 

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Tangential discussion moved to chat.

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@dimension10 1)Twice and for stuff that clearly low-level? Only?  Then I'm not sure I understand how questions are closed. When a question is closed, is its close-vote post removed from  the vote-moderation-queue?

2) Without consensus? I didn't know this. So could I move it to another section, say, Q/A?

3) Can you be more specific about what I did before I opened this question?

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This question  http://www.physicsoverflow.org/31315/single-double-experiment-resetting-detector-material-impact was (1) closed, (2) without removing it from the close-cote post, (3) with net score lower than +2, (4) and its level was higher than a ball rolling down a hill (it was a quantum mechanics question, not a high-school question).

Can you explain why?

Answer 2

The policy for closing questions hasn't changed.

Comments

How can you say that?  dimension10 has just said that he did violate this policy twice. 

Me:

Are you admitting this policy has been repeatedly violated?  

dimension10: 

Yes. About twice, I think, both times by me, and I don't intend to stop

One can argue that the policy has been violated for a good reason. But saying that has not been violated is false. 

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My previous comment was in regard to the first version of Dilaton answer, in which he claimed that the policy had not been violated. No one has asked or claimed that the policy has changed, so this new version of the answer ("the policy hasn't changed") is strange .

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It was obviously what he had intended to say; so he corrected it after you pointed out (in inappropriate hostile words that I edited away) that what he said didn't make sense in this context. Strangeness is in the eye of the beholder.

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Tangential discussion moved to chat.