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According to this comment...

anyone who has access to the database of this website can see who has closevoted

Is this true? If so, can anyone post a "template" query showing how to do it?

My initial thought was that since this information isn't normally made public until after a question is closed, there might be some kind of "privacy" issue involved here. But on reflection I suppose that since the closevoter has no way of knowing when (or whether) there will be enough other votes to action the closure, he has to assume the fact of his own closevote is already "out there".

Nevertheless, if this kind of "sneak preview" is in fact possible, it seems slightly at odds with how the site works in general. I'm not a mod, but my understanding is that by default the system tends to avoid giving even them access to information they don't "need".

I'm not adopting a strong position on this issue, but I'd like to know how the system works, and whether or not anyone else feels this behaviour might be considered "sailing close to the wind".

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  • Well, if "access to the database" is meant to mean what it usually means, then yes, anyone with access can see who's voted. Those people would typically be Stackexchange employees though. – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Jul 30 '14 at 16:17
  • @Mr. Shiny: I'm talking about the public facilities that all users can feely access (and maybe even people who never registered on any SO site, I don't know). – FumbleFingers Jul 30 '14 at 16:20
  • The SEDE doesn't show user IDs for things like close votes. – Mr. Shiny and New 安宇 Jul 30 '14 at 17:06
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The public data dump at data.stackexchange.com does not provide access to the identities of people casting close votes. However, anyone—unregistered users included—can see the results of review queue votes, if they know the ID number of the vote.

Close vote

If you participated in a queue vote, you'll find a link to it in your activity history, or by going to review > Close Votes (or another queue type) > recent reviews > history. Users with 10,000+ reputation will also see the queue votes cast by everyone else on that page.

Close vote queue

(To see the queue votes for a question, click the name of the vote option—Close, Leave Open, etc. It took me for-freakin'-ever to stumble across this on my own.) If you didn't participate in a vote, you'd have to get the vote ID number for the URL in some other way, or just randomly guess it.

Note that this only shows you the votes of people who voted through the review queue. It does not show the name of the person who originally sent it to the queue by casting the first close-vote, or of anyone else who voted on the question page itself, for some reason. I'm all for accountability, personally, but if you're truly paranoid about people seeing how you close-voted, do it from the question page, not from the queue.

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  • 1
    This is a great answer, thanks! I'm not bothered that other queue reviewers can see my closevotes before they "go public" as a result of other supporting votes. That point about accessing "queue votes per post" is useful - I knew I'd stumbled across it myself once somewhen, but I never actually remembered how to do it again. – FumbleFingers Jul 30 '14 at 17:05
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    Excellent! Now I know who that bastard is who tried to close my question. I will get him! – Mitch Jul 30 '14 at 21:00
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    @Mitch: Or her. We are equal-opportunity revenge closevoters. – Tim Lymington Jul 31 '14 at 17:19

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