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Questions can be edited. An edit might simply be tidying the question up - e.g. correcting spelling, punctuation or grammar - or it might be a more substantial edit designed to make the question clearer. Indeed Law SE encourages comments on questions with a view to improving them and not only the OP can edit a question but anybody can subject - of course - in the latter case to confirmation of the edit by the OP.

My question is about questions which are closed and/or commented on and then subsequently edited. Those who vote to close might not have voted to close if they had been presented with the question in its subsequently edited form. Some comments might no longer be relevant to the question in it now current form. What is the best way of handling this situation? Does Law SE automatically invite those who voted to close to reconsider in the light of a comment or edit? Is there any recommended way of highlighting the fact that a question has been substantially edited?

This is a general question but I have a case study also. If you look at this question and its edit history you can see that the question as originally posted looks, at first glance, to be rambling and unfocussed, but if you are familiar with the area of legal study concerned (Jurisprudence) and take into account the fact that the OP is not a native English speaker (which is clear from comments and his other posts) it is clear that this is an intelligent on-topic question but not well expressed in English.

I sympathise with anyone posting on Law SE who is not a native speaker of English because in addition to the ordinary difficulties with language, law uses (without warning) ordinary English words with technical legal meanings. Also between Common Law systems (the systems in the English speaking world) and other legal systems (the OP is Greek) there can be legal concepts which seem similar but which have subtle differences which adds to the language barrier.

The question as it is now seems to me (I may be biased as I had a hand in the edit) to be obviously on-topic and clear but for some reason is still closed.

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  • I have answered for the general case and described the process, but for this particular question: the review is still pending, while the question has three reopen votes.
    – user4657
    Oct 20, 2021 at 10:30
  • I have been wondering as well why a recent post of mind was down-voted by a gang, none of whom stayed around to explain the reason for having expressed negativity. I have my theory that it is a 'northamerican thing'; it would be get if someone would come forward to inform me why the hit and run job. Or: what is wrong with the question, or how can it be improved. I edited the original question by removing several paragraphs that were perhaps lyrical or redundatn. In advance, thanks! law.stackexchange.com/questions/77032/… Jan 23, 2022 at 6:14

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Closed questions are placed into a queue by the first major edit that occurs after they are closed, or the first Reopen vote it receives.

Previously a question entered the queue after the first edit of any kind. A recent change to the editor allows the user making the edit to mark whether the edit is intended to be sufficient to justify reopening. If marked negatively, this would prevent it from entering the queue, getting a poor review, remaining closed, and not getting exposure when it is made open-worthy by subsequent edits.

Results may vary.

If a time limit is reached, the question is removed from the queue.

If a question receives two more Leave Closed votes than the current number of Reopen votes, including those that were added by review and those added from "natural" viewing, it is removed from the queue.

If a question receives (more) Reopen votes, the time limit is extended, providing additional exposure and greater chance of further Reopen votes.

Once a post is removed from the queue, it will not be able to enter the queue again unless it is opened and closed again.

This queue, and others, are available only to users with enough rep.

If these users are not checking the queues, found in the dropdown menu in the top banner, the posts don't get the necessary votes, and eventually time out.

You can try flagging for a moderator to reopen the question by binding vote, but this is not preferred as it circumvents the principle of community curation. Only flag for moderators when you know the review has "timed out" instead of receiving a clear result.

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