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According to site policy, Purim Torah In Jest (PTIJ) questions are closed after Purim.

I was browsing some older, closed PTIJ questions (for example, this one), and found that the close message now typically appears as such:

Closed. This question is off-topic. It is not currently accepting answers.

Want to improve this question? Update the question so it's on-topic for Mi Yodeya.

Closed X months ago.

This is potentially confusing to users, as no amount of editing will make a PTIJ question into a non-PTIJ question.

The policy mentioned above does mention a path to reopening: "If you want an old Purim Torah question re-opened during this year's season, ask the moderators."

Questions that have been closed as "old PTIJ" (and not for any other reason) should not display the default closed message. Rather, they should show something useful like,

Closed. This question is an old Purim Torah in Jest (PTIJ) question that was closed after Purim. It is not currently accepting answers.

Want this question reopened during a future Purim? Flag it for moderator attention. Please read our PTIJ policy for further details.

Closed X months ago.

I do recognize that the message as it exists was part of a major rollout of closure changes on Stack Exchange late last year. What I'm saying is that this is one of those cases where the default message just doesn't make sense and should be special-cased.

As Isaac Moses ♦ mentioned, users without the reputation level to vote to close can no longer see the reason a question was closed. Under the old system, users could at least see the custom "Purim Torah" close reason text as part of the close banner. Now, users see just that the question is off-topic, potentially leading them to believe that Purim Torah is inherently off-topic rather than a special case that is on-topic during Purim and off-topic at all other times of the year. Another way to satisfy this feature request could be to simply allow all users to view this (or even all) close reasons regardless of reputation. Users could then see that "oh, this is a special case".

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  • Mods, can you confirm my suspicion that this just isn’t possible within the framework of SE? Maybe a potential fix going forward is to change the close reason to include a line about “If it’s currently during PTIJ season, flag to reopen.” – DonielF Feb 25 '20 at 16:57
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    @DonielF This isn't something mods can do. It would have to be a special coded case from SE. – Double AA♦ Feb 25 '20 at 17:29
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    (I have seen this, currently trying to figure out how much protekzia I can get away with here…) – Yaakov Ellis♦ Feb 26 '20 at 13:15
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    @YaakovEllis I hadn't realized that in general, people without close/reopen privileges can no longer see custom close reasons at all. Why is that? That makes it harder for them to "improve this question" effectively, and it makes it harder for us to use these reasons to promote understanding of our scope. I'm sure you've addressed this on MSE; if you have a link handy, I'd appreciate it. – Isaac Moses♦ Feb 26 '20 at 16:11
  • @YaakovEllis as you pointed out in chat, this feature change is discussed here, along with intent to further refine the closure feature, which could I think help us here. – Isaac Moses♦ Feb 26 '20 at 20:56

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