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I'd been under the impression that once a question was closed, further voting was either not possible, or wouldn't affect reputation.

But a couple of hours ago, someone upvoted my answer on Why does the gorilla weigh exactly 800 pounds? which was closed yesterday, and my rep has apparently increased because of that up-vote.

What have I misunderstood?

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  • What part of the FAQ suggested you this? I didn't find anything about it there...
    – Alenanno
    Sep 8, 2011 at 17:19
  • Does it matter? I thought it. Besides which if I could remember where I'd gotten the impression from I'd obviously have put a link in above already.
    – FumbleFingers
    Sep 8, 2011 at 17:49
  • 1
    Well, discussing this if based on something that is actually written is different than discussing on something you just thought, so yeah, it matters. Not critically – I was just wondering, but it does. I asked in case there wasn't something specific but rather a part that gave you that impression.
    – Alenanno
    Sep 8, 2011 at 18:23
  • I honestly don't recall if there even was anything apart from my fertile imagination involved. But I've definitely propogated my misconception at least a couple of times in recent comments, and no-one has put me straight. Ah well - just goes to show less people read my pearls of wisdom than I'd like to have thought! :)
    – FumbleFingers
    Sep 8, 2011 at 18:31

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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What is a "closed" question? reports the following two sentences:

When a question is closed, no additional answers may be posted to it, although the question and existing answers can still be edited (by users with edit privileges) and voted upon, and will continue to count for badges. The asker of a closed question may still accept an answer.

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  • Gotcha. It seems my problem may have arisen because of confusion between closed and locked questions - the latter being essentially meaningless to me since I'd never seen one until I followed @waiwai933's link below. Now all I have to figure out is why I didn't manage to find your linked question when I searched before asking here. Maybe there needs to be a better 'trail' leading off our FAQ.
    – FumbleFingers
    Sep 9, 2011 at 11:56
  • The question I linked is part of the FAQ on Meta Stack Overflow; it is part of a group of questions that explains what closed, protected, and locked questions are. I personally get confused from locked questions, that I keep considering questions where it is not possible to vote on its answers. (Maybe I am too excessive in what is being locked.)
    – apaderno
    Sep 9, 2011 at 12:06
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Closing only prevents answers. Locking, which is restricted to mods, prevents all activity including commenting and voting.

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  • Thank you. I've erroneously posted comments reflecting my misconception a few times recently (in the context of discussions about the desirability of re-opening some closed questions). If I track them down I'll delete them. If nobody upvotes my question here in the next couple of days I'll probably ask for this to be closed/deleted as well! :)
    – FumbleFingers
    Sep 8, 2011 at 18:20
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    To clarify further, locking prevents voting on the question, but last I checked it was still possible to vote on answers to locked questions.
    – mmyers
    Sep 8, 2011 at 18:36
  • I wonder... is it possible/ever necessary to lock answers? I've never seen it.
    – Daniel
    Sep 8, 2011 at 20:18
  • @drm65 It's possible, but the only reason I can think of is a huge edit war, which is rare (and even rarer when we're talking about answers).
    – waiwai933
    Sep 9, 2011 at 0:08
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    Here's an example of a locked post. You'll notice that you can't vote or comment on it.
    – waiwai933
    Sep 9, 2011 at 0:10
  • Fair enough. I've never seen a locked question before, so I'd never really have thought about them. Perhaps I got my misconceptions about voting on closed questions because I conflated closed/locked. I understand now, and it doesn't really matter exactly why I didn't before.
    – FumbleFingers
    Sep 9, 2011 at 0:16

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