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Earlier this year I asked a question on GIS SE which had a bit of activity in the form of comments and an answer. It was then closed as a Duplicate (correctly - I have no issue with that).

The interesting thing was that I wasn't told it had been closed - I had gone back to see a couple of comments that had been added and noticed

marked as duplicate by PolyGeo♦ Feb 12 at 0:58

I had not received any notification from Stack Exchange that my question had been marked as duplicate.

I have had only one other of my own GIS.SE questions closed, early in my days here, and can't remember what happened then, but I have had at least one question closed on a different SE site and I remember I wasn't notified that time (closed as off-topic - wrong SE site).

Why am I not getting notified by Stack Exchange when one of my questions is put on hold, closed, or marked as duplicate etc.?

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Stack Exchange does not send notifications to users if their Question is put on hold, closed, marked as duplicate, or if it has been reopened again.

This is detailed in the Meta SE Q&A Send authors an inbox message if their question gets closed

In a (now deleted) answer to that Q&A, Stack Exchange co-founder Jeff Attwood said

We don't believe in overly nagging and notifying people for minutiae. This is a core philosophy at the highest echelons of the company leadership. (Read: me.)

When voting on questions, either directly or through the Review queue, I would encourage users to leave a comment as to why they are voting to close if there hasn't already been a comment left.

Comments on questions are notified to the asker, so leaving a polite comment explaining about what needs to be fixed in the question to have it fit our format will notify the asker, and may help some of them return to improve their questions.

As a moderator I try to leave a comment on every question where I vote to close (if there isn't already a comment regarding the pending closure), however it is very easy for these comments to be overlooked when going through the Close Votes queue.

So please, if you are voting to close a question, leave a helpful comment explaining what's happening and why, and what the asker can do to get it re-opened.

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    I don't quite have the 10K rep on MSE to see the remainder of Jeff's deleted answer for any additional insight into his thinking when he wrote it. However, I agree with you that as moderators being diligent about always making a comment when voting to place questions on hold would be helpful to the community. At one time I think I did that always, but nowadays I suspect only do in about 75%, which is because my ratio of viewing questions on iPhone:laptop has gone up greatly.
    – PolyGeo Mod
    May 21, 2017 at 8:11
  • @PolyGeo I am unsure what else Jeff's deleted answer says - I included the quote here more to show that it is an intentional decision and not a bug or oversight.
    – Midavalo Mod
    May 21, 2017 at 15:54
  • I just looked up the rest of Jeff's deleted answer: "- You should care about your question more than any other human being on the planet. If it is closed, you should already know about that without needing a special magic notification. - It's an invitation to complain. "Oh look, here is a signed, notarized document telling you we closed your question." - The existing close reasons on the question, along with the explanation, should be sufficient for explaining what is going on."
    – PolyGeo Mod
    Jun 16, 2018 at 1:23

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