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Today I clicked on Review and saw the message below.

You've failed too many recent review audits - looks like you might need a break. Come back in in 7 days and try again.

Why does this type of message appear?

Is there any daily limit to viewing reviews on Stack Overflow?

https://i.sstatic.net/xj5X3.png

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  • 28
    I'd say the message is fairly clear, you failed too many review audits are were temporarily review banned. Didn't know this change was pushed out yet. And this would appear to be unrelated to your title (which there are daily limits on the number of reviews too)
    – psubsee2003
    Commented Dec 14, 2012 at 6:37
  • 55
    No, no no, no. Don't downvote this. This needs to have a million points and sit at the top of the question list for a week. It's finally happening.
    – Charles
    Commented Dec 14, 2012 at 6:38
  • 28
    5 Steward badges... hmm...
    – Mysticial
    Commented Dec 14, 2012 at 6:40
  • 2
    @Charles: The less people know about it, the better, eh?
    – Manishearth
    Commented Dec 14, 2012 at 6:42
  • 29
    see explanation here: "suspending reviewing privileges for folks who fail multiple review audits in a short time...". Did I mention that this post made my day? Woo-hoo it finally happened
    – gnat
    Commented Dec 14, 2012 at 6:44
  • 28
    "Come back in in 7 days and try again." (emphasis mine) Cannot unsee.
    – BoltClock's a Unicorn Mod
    Commented Dec 14, 2012 at 6:46
  • 15
    @BoltClock'saUnicorn It's still grammatically correct though. "[Come back in] in 7 days"
    – Mysticial
    Commented Dec 14, 2012 at 6:47
  • 1
    @Mysticial: I realize. It's still kind of awkward in this context...
    – BoltClock's a Unicorn Mod
    Commented Dec 14, 2012 at 6:48
  • 13
    @gnat, I think this is the first time in a very, very long time that I've been glad to see a new tag.
    – Charles
    Commented Dec 14, 2012 at 6:57
  • 2
    I may actually go back to the review queues now.
    – J. Steen
    Commented Dec 14, 2012 at 10:47
  • 12
    Christmas came early!
    – user7116
    Commented Dec 14, 2012 at 13:56
  • 2
    @Mysticial, I like how badges line to "Steward android".
    – Oleg V. Volkov
    Commented Dec 14, 2012 at 14:28
  • 1
    I wonder if I should be worried that this OP has earned the 'Research Assistant' badge...
    – Andrew Barber
    Commented Dec 14, 2012 at 22:26
  • 9
    I made the tweak to the banned text - this will be in in the next deploy.
    – Geoff Dalgas
    Commented Dec 15, 2012 at 1:48
  • 8
    How many is too many? I failed 2 last week and I got banned.
    – radu florescu
    Commented Jan 16, 2013 at 6:26

3 Answers 3

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Review queue audits are now in place. A lot of people are blindly upvoting everything in the queue without even reading the posts, just so that they can get the badges. So, some posts in the review queue are designed to catch such users, these are known as "audits". You failed too many, so you're review-banned now.

If you're in it for the badges/stats, don't participate in the queue. Blindly upvoting/etc. is extremely bad for the site.

Here are the full details on how the ban works. Most of the steps take into account the length of any previous review bans you've faced, including manual bans imposed by a moderator:

  • If you fail three audits within a (rolling) 30-day period, you will be banned for 2 days if you have no history of getting banned, or for half the length of your previous ban if you do.

  • Once a review ban ends, you'll be placed on "review probation" for a period of 30 days. If you fail a single audit while on review probation, you'll be banned for double the length of your previous ban. Review probation is also imposed at the end of a manual moderator's ban.

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  • 16
    Since he already has his 5 Steward badges, I don't understand why he's continuing to review. What more does he want? It looks like even the badges don't matter now either.
    – BoltClock's a Unicorn Mod
    Commented Dec 14, 2012 at 6:49
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    @BoltClock'saUnicorn - 1 Steward badge is still remaining. He is second in Reopen votes
    – Himanshu
    Commented Dec 14, 2012 at 6:50
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    See, all the time we're complaining about how numbing mindless jobs are that only require you to click one button each day, every day, and people are still doing it here, voluntarily!
    – slhck
    Commented Dec 14, 2012 at 6:51
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    @hims056: Oh yes, right, there are six review queues now (and I imagine more will be added later for these drones to harvest).
    – BoltClock's a Unicorn Mod
    Commented Dec 14, 2012 at 6:51
  • @ʞɔɥls: Voluntarily?
    – BoltClock's a Unicorn Mod
    Commented Dec 14, 2012 at 6:52
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    Okay, maybe not quite. Anyway, if there were a clear message that these badges could be revoked if you failed too many times, or people would be blocked from reviewing altogether, that'd even be a better solution (as far as I can see in this case). @Bol
    – slhck
    Commented Dec 14, 2012 at 6:56
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    @ʞɔɥls 'could be revoked' -> should be revoked! Let his/them earn them again after his/their review ban is lifted!
    – Veger
    Commented Dec 16, 2012 at 11:37
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    @BoltClock'saUnicorn - Does the failed audit count gets reset after serving a 7 day ban?!
    – Rahul
    Commented Nov 5, 2013 at 11:37
  • @R.J meta.stackexchange.com/questions/174118/… . The system may take the fact that you were banned before into account, so if previously 4 audits give rise to a ban, this time it may take only 3 additional failed audits.
    – Manishearth
    Commented Nov 5, 2013 at 11:43
  • (ignore the previous-now-deleted comment, I copy pasted wrong)
    – Manishearth
    Commented Nov 5, 2013 at 11:45
  • @Manishearth I'm blocked second time. This time I was very careful. I read the question by opened in another tab and then approved. But i got message like you need a break. Can anyone help me to get review option Pls?
    – Kumar V
    Commented Jan 22, 2014 at 16:09
  • @kumar_v No you weren't. Audit questions are ones which have been closed or deleted, and you would have noticed on opening it in a new tab. Link to the failed audit?
    – Manishearth
    Commented Jan 22, 2014 at 19:55
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    @kumar_v Hmm, apparently this was a suggested edit audit, in which case my comment about opening in an new tab doesn't apply; however there is no reason to open suggested edits in a new tab anyway. And the audit was a pretty obvious spam one. I would say that you deserve the ban.
    – Manishearth
    Commented Jan 22, 2014 at 20:01
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    @kumar_v - You've failed all of the last four suggested edit audits you were presented with (last two: stackoverflow.com/review/suggested-edits/3867154 , stackoverflow.com/review/suggested-edits/3810598 ). There is no situation under which these should be approved, since they are complete garbage. The system is right, you were not paying attention to what you were reviewing, you were warned about this multiple times, and so the ban is justified. When you are able to review again in 30 days, please read everything you review a lot more carefully.
    – Brad Larson Mod
    Commented Jan 22, 2014 at 20:10
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    I think some audit questions are not really well selected, as e.g. "low quality" in some cases is really opinion based. I would prefer a short answer that just links to a website with a detailed tutorial/answer, than no answer at all.. Just got a ban because of that. I think it's good to have these audits, but audit questions/answer should be obvious, and not be border cases.
    – d4Rk
    Commented Apr 5, 2015 at 15:52
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Starting the other month, review audit checks were added to the review queues. These were added after disturbing "rubber stamping" was noticed, which resulted in poor quality content being upvoted constantly.

These audit checks are questions that are known to be high-quality, or known to be low-quality. It is expected that you, as a reviewer, are able to discern the difference between high quality, average quality, and low quality content, and are taking an appropriate action.

That is, you should be upvoting great content, leaving average content alone (or suggesting improvements), and helping to improve, flag or otherwise help with the moderation of low-quality content.

When you pick the wrong answer during one of these audits, the system should give you feedback on what went wrong and how to improve your actions in the future.

You have failed so many of these audits that you have been temporarily banned from the review queues.

When the ban is lifted next week, you need to either use the review queues and act like a responsible member of the community -- don't just upvote everything -- or avoid the queues completely.

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This is review suspension. It could happen to reviewer who frequently observes the message looking like:

https://i.sstatic.net/fKYEP.png

Above message indicates that user failed a review audit:

Test items in review queues that are designed to help new reviewers hone their moderation skills, while nudging more experienced users that don't seem to be paying close attention to what they're reviewing...

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