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In a comment to this closed question Barsmonster comments that closed questions never are reopened.

You need 3000 rep to vote to reopen a closed question. At this moment there are 36 users who have enough rep to do so. A number of them a not that active (like not having visited for a month and a half) and others may not have a look at a closed question anyway. It's no surprise that from the remaining few you can't find five who vote to reopen.

Should the requirements be relaxed?

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    \$\begingroup\$ You could ask the same question about closing a question. There are the same requirements as reopening, but we seem to manage. It is rare to not see a mod having to help out with closing a question, but for really bad questions it does happen with out them. I think the same holds true here. For now a mod will need to help out, but for really good questions it can be reopened with out mod help. \$\endgroup\$ – Kellenjb Aug 15 '11 at 12:15
  • \$\begingroup\$ I didn't realized that this community is so small (I mean so few users have more rep than me). \$\endgroup\$ – Kamil Nov 26 '14 at 17:05
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Kamil: It's not. Note the date when this question was written. This site has grown a lot in the 3 1/2 years since then. We currently have 46 users over 10 kRep, 125 over the 3 kRep it takes to vote close/reopen on questions, and you are #124. \$\endgroup\$ – Olin Lathrop Nov 28 '14 at 22:46
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Over time there will be more users with this privilege.

In the meantime, use moderator flags and meta discussions to indicate questions you feel should be reopened, and explain why.

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    \$\begingroup\$ @stevenvh, this is why I still regularly ask users to flag for moderator attention when they think a question should be reopened. \$\endgroup\$ – Kortuk Aug 15 '11 at 10:48
  • \$\begingroup\$ I agree with Kortuk about this. Users can flag moderator for it if they believe it needs reopening. \$\endgroup\$ – Gustavo Litovsky Jan 19 '13 at 0:40
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4 years on ...

Regardless of whether the condions are too strict, they are usually not applied. A question is often closed with a specious standard reason given which gives minimal useful guidance or which misleads the questioner. Then if the reopen criteria are met it is usual for the question to stay closed.

It feels as if people "just don't care" about newcomers or even that they seek to actvely punish and dissuade them from participating and/or "learning the ropes".

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    \$\begingroup\$ This site is not a game to see how sloppy a question you can get away with. "Oh, you caught me, so now I'll pay a little more attention and clean up a few things. Is this good enough to get away with it now? Not on my free time. We are all volunteers here. \$\endgroup\$ – Olin Lathrop Nov 21 '14 at 14:55
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    \$\begingroup\$ I go through the reopen queue regularly, and it's been my observation that the questions worthy of being reopened, get reopened. Meaning that the OP comes back and adds schematic, additional information, code, or actually clarifies what is being asked. The garbage where the OP makes some trivial edits that don't fundamentally make the question any better stay closed. That is how the system should work. \$\endgroup\$ – Matt Young Nov 21 '14 at 15:45
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    \$\begingroup\$ Could you show some examples? \$\endgroup\$ – user17592 Nov 21 '14 at 22:42
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    \$\begingroup\$ @OlinLathrop I agree. The site is not a game to see how sloppy a question you can get away with. Nor is it a 'good ol boys' playground for elitist dominance games and demands that perfect Queens English (or USAian English at a pinch) be employed. It's not an arena where the newcomers get shown that they must fall into line or be driven from the site. It's not ... . Alas, some may be unclear on some of these. \$\endgroup\$ – Russell McMahon♦ Nov 22 '14 at 15:46
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    \$\begingroup\$ @CamilStaps Yes. I could very easily show you examples. But I am not going to do so in open forum as to do so invites thuggery and retribution. I recently pointed out that a question had met reopen criteria for the last two weeks but had not been reopened. It was opened soon after, but with no comment. |A person with extrenely poor English is MUCH more liable to have their question closed than a person with more usual English skilld. Closure often happens even before the day following the query - so the 1st response they see is a closed question. .... \$\endgroup\$ – Russell McMahon♦ Nov 23 '14 at 8:09
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    \$\begingroup\$ .... Many are confused enough by the messages that they give up and leave. It is not realised by many more experienced users that the system locks out low rep people who are deemed to have submitted too many 'bad questions' This means that people are unaware of the issues that people are having trying to understand the system. Even though the messages APPEAR clear enough, in reality they fail. I have seen this happen with a new user who holds a technical position that many here could only ever dream of. .... \$\endgroup\$ – Russell McMahon♦ Nov 23 '14 at 8:14
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    \$\begingroup\$ .... While relatively inexperienced they are involved in a range of technical activities that is not obvious from their English language skills. They speak about 500% more languages than most USAians. | How many of your designs will ever go to space, as theirs have? When did you last design anything with an annual volume of around 500,000, as they have? | Bzzzt - sorry bad questions, go away, we don't need you here. | I felt like using an Olin-favoured term about here but that's sure to be unproductive. So - we can do better! \$\endgroup\$ – Russell McMahon♦ Nov 23 '14 at 8:19
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    \$\begingroup\$ Relatively recently a person (not any of those mentioned above) asked a question which appeared to show a certain mind set. They live in India. Various people put on their boots, climbed on the bandwagon and commenced the usual thrashing. I pointed out that people commenting were ignorant of the language issues involved and were reading things into the question that were probably not there. An experienced high rep SE user, who happens to also live in India and whose linguistic skills probably exceed mine, added support to what I said and explained how things appreared to be being taken wrongly \$\endgroup\$ – Russell McMahon♦ Nov 23 '14 at 8:27
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    \$\begingroup\$ .... The explanatory input did not apprear to inform the mindsets of those involved in critical action - then or since. It would be easy to read racist motivations into such behaviour (even though I think it is liable to be more due to blinkered isolatioism. ) \$\endgroup\$ – Russell McMahon♦ Nov 23 '14 at 8:27
  • \$\begingroup\$ +1 brilliantly stated! \$\endgroup\$ – Adam Nov 24 '14 at 3:49
  • \$\begingroup\$ @RussellMcMahon I'm sorry, you're right to not show some examples publicly. For me, I don't need to, I go through the queue often enough. I was just thinking of improving this answer like that, but you're right that it wouldn't be an improvement. \$\endgroup\$ – user17592 Nov 26 '14 at 16:52

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