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I see tons of "no action needed" reviews on First Posts and I believe some of them actually deserved some action.

There are some robo-reviewers, I feel, who consistently and thoughtlessly choose "no action needed". I find such reviews to be detrimental to ELU.

  1. How can we discourage such robo-reviewers?
  2. How do I bring this problem to a mod's attention in secret?
  3. How many reviews are needed on a particular First Post to clear it from queue?
  4. Is there any system to automatically detect such misuse of review privileges?
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  • Flag one of the user's posts with w custom message. If you think you'll need some back-and-forth with the mods, ask them to set up a private chat room.
    – Dan Bron
    Jun 14, 2016 at 11:57
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    @NVZ Not too broad. I think #4 is obviously impossible, there's no way to distinguish a string of robo-'no action' and a string of actual 'no action' (unless you need more than one person to push it off the queue). Also downvotes on meta aren't that it's a bad question, just that they are saying 'I disagree'.
    – Mitch
    Jun 14, 2016 at 19:53
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    I upvoted, hours ago, so I can't tell you with certainty why you're getting downvotes, but I suspect the reason is that ultimately, you are calling out a user, and there is a camp on SE which dislikes that, however subtly and gently it's being done. The wording and presentation is fine. I would not know you learned English as a second language if you didn't tell us. Don't sweat it. Downvotes on Meta don't even cost rep.
    – Dan Bron
    Jun 14, 2016 at 20:52
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    Don't worry about the downvotes. 4 upvotes and 4 downvotes mean users here are equally divided. Nothing more nothing less. I think one critical point is why you think that behavior is considered as robo-review or misuse of review privileges while I don't see it that way.
    – user140086
    Jun 15, 2016 at 8:33

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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  1. Choosing No Action Needed is not a behavior that needs to be done less, but rather more appropriately. In the instructions, it says "when this post needs no action from you." Interpreted generously, this action is applicable in all cases. Because review work is volunteer, technically no posts need action from any one user. However, this action actually means that the post does not need any help, it's fine, and it can be left alone. Please use it that way.

  2. You can bring any issues up to a mod privately using a moderator flag. For this example, you might flag one of the posts ("in need of moderator attention") that you believe was reviewed improperly and explain to a moderator that you feel the user's review actions should be reviewed. You can flag your own posts if you have other issues you want to bring to our attention, like possible serial downvoting, sockpuppets, or voting rings. You can also find us in chat and ask to speak privately.

  3. I think it is one or two reviews depending on rep and agreement. I'll see what I can find out.

As a side note, for anyone who is wondering -- yes, it is worthwhile to flag for our attention if someone is abusing the review queues. There are disciplinary actions we can take, just as there are with posts. Please do this sparingly though. It is a lot of work to investigate review behavior.

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  • 2
    I have submitted a small batch of mod flags on the most egregious of bad flags. Please let me know if they are helpful.
    – curiousdannii
    Jun 15, 2016 at 6:06
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    My mod flag format: "User X badly reviewed this post, which is an obvious example of a proofreading question/question without any research/etc [Link to review] (Meta discussion meta.english.stackexchange.com/a/8095/59258)"
    – curiousdannii
    Jun 15, 2016 at 6:07
  • Those flags are still pending :/
    – curiousdannii
    Jun 19, 2016 at 1:06
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    @Kit and other mods: three of the four flags I raised were rejected with "You need only flag one post to direct our attention to a user who should have their review privileges examined." I don't really care about that, but I thought one point of Kit's post is that because it is a whole lot of work to examine these bad reviews, we could help share the work a little by flagging some bad reviews. So is there any actual point in us flagging? You already know who the bad reviewers are...
    – curiousdannii
    Jun 22, 2016 at 7:10
  • @KitZFox My one remaining flag is still outstanding. Does the mod team actually want the community to help identify these frequent bad reviewers?
    – curiousdannii
    Jul 14, 2016 at 7:12
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    @curiousdannii Yes, still. Our flag queue is backed up and we haven't had time to dig into the details and decide what, if anything, is to be done.
    – Kit Z. Fox Mod
    Jul 14, 2016 at 12:01

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