##Guidelines for reviewing Reopen Votes

The items in the **Reopen Queue** may take more time to process than other queues. If someone votes to re-open a question, either community members disagreed, or the content of the post has changed in an attempt to improve it, so you will need to understand and evaluate the contention.

### Basic workflow

Review the question as it is now. 
 
 * Per the [Guidelines for reviewing Close Votes](https://meta.stackexchange.com/a/180032/183887), should the question remain closed? In short, does one of the five close reasons - Exact Duplicate, Off Topic, Unclear what you're Asking, Too Broad, Primarily Opinion-based - still apply? If so, vote to **Leave Closed**.
 * If not, vote to **Reopen**.
 * If you aren't sure, **Skip**.

However, keep in mind there was some contention. Either someone felt the close votes were misguided and voted to open, or someone attempted to improve the question and make it passable. It will happen more often that you are unsure what to do with a question appearing in the re-open queue. Bear in mind these questions are difficult for everyone to evaluate, so we encourage you to take the time to research the question more rather than click "Skip" on the harder ones. The following questions may help your decision:

 * Do you see why someone voted to re-open the question? Understanding the reason can make you feel more sure you considered all angles and are not "missing something."
 * Has the question's content changed in an effort to improve it since then?

If "yes" to the second, but you still feel the question should remain closed, please **consider leaving a comment** explaining why the changes were insufficient. In many cases, an editor or the OP sincerely evaluated the content and tried to improve it to the best of their ability, and seeing the question remain closed will likely not help them learn our standards or how to improve the question.


### Tips for evaluating items in the Reopen Queue

* **Do** check the close reason to understand why the question was closed in the first place. 

 This is particularly important with duplicate questions, as when your question is closed as a duplicate, the OP gets a message to edit their post to clarify why it's not a duplicate of the linked question, so this may have occurred. 

* **Do** read the comments. 

 Often the reason why the post was closed or is getting a reopen vote is listed in the comments, and that can help you understand what the community is trying to do with the question, and help you make a more informed decision.

* **Do** check the Revision History. 

 Was an edit done to address the reason it was closed in the first place? The edit may have been done prior to the question getting its last close vote, so don't forget to check the earlier revision history.

* **Don't** vote to reopen items that should be closed, however were closed with the wrong close reason.

 If the item should have been closed, leave it closed, regardless of what the actual close reason says. Although *do* leave a comment if there isn't one already explaining the true reason why the question was closed. Furthermore, if the question is a duplicate and is closed for one of the other reasons, *do* flag for moderator attention and explain, because we would [rather future visitors be routed to the correct answer](https://meta.stackexchange.com/q/178955/183887) than be stuck.