I'm still becoming increasingly confused as to why we can't do or see certain things (really, just about anything except for answer a question) from the Review interface.
Today, it's comment voting. I came across a question in the close queue where another person had already left a comment that clearly described why the question should be closed. Sometimes, I'll come across other questions where a commenter has also clearly stated what can be done to improve this question so that it will either not be closed or will be a good candidate for getting re-opened. Often times, in either case, the thread is still worth my close vote because it is either off-topic, low quality, or missing out on some other SE criteria, and it does not contain enough detail for me to feel confident that I can edit it into a good question that is still valuable to its original author.
I personally feel that, in most cases, it is our responsibility to the question author to give them feedback if we are going to down-vote or vote-to-close their question. Sometimes, the feedback is clear enough in the close reason but this is only visible after the final vote - and even then, only the option selected by the majority is shown. For instances where I'm giving a down-vote, or I'm one of the first-through-fourth people voting to close, the comment space is my only real option for giving feedback to the author. Regardless, I feel that providing feedback to the author is essential in helping them to learn how to write better questions, write questions that better fit the StackExchange model, and get answers that are both useful to them and the community.
However, in cases where another person's comment already clearly and thoroughly relates my concerns regarding the post, it's often preferable that I up-vote the existing comment instead of leaving my own, redundant comment to clutter up the thread. This is not currently an option from within the Review interface. Interestingly enough, I'm allowed to leave a comment but I'm not allowed to vote on existing comments.
If I want to vote on an existing comment, I need to follow one of two processes - the choice between which is pretty much determined by the first step in each:
- Remember that the Review interface will immediately leave the question when I choose an action option.
- Open one of the links to the question in a new, background tab in my browser.
- Choose my action for the question.
- If necessary, choose the reason for my action.
- If necessary, select other options (i.e.: duplicate question) to complete the action.
- Switch to the question's tab.
- Vote on the comment.
- Close the question's tab and go back to reviewing, or doing whatever else I was going to do.
OR
- Forget that the Review interface will immediately leave the question when I choose an action option.
- Choose my action for the question.
- If necessary, choose the reason for my action.
- If necessary, select other options (i.e.: duplicate question) to complete the action.
- Open a new browser tab with the main site interface.
- Search for and open the question.
- Vote on the comment.
- Close the question's tab and go back to reviewing, or doing whatever else I was going to do.
Each of these workflows has four steps (italicized), plus associated page loading times, that I would not need to go through if the option to vote on a comment was simply included in the Review interface. So, for the sake of our time and sanity - the savings of which, I believe, is the primary goal of this interface in the first place - please add or restore this functionality.
