Strongly separate duplicates from "the rest" in close votes review queue

Question

##Update: I wish I could downvote decline justification twice.

"You can already filter down by close reason." Oh really ,

Do you see many reviewers using filter?
Do you see Steward badges awarded for Close Votes as frequently as these would be to obtain with appropriately filtered review queue? Hint: currently, there are 1-2 CV Steward badges awarded a day

...300 freaking easy golden badges that could drain 40,000 items from the queue in less than a month, and so little interest in these among 10,000 eligible users - why?

Do you see review queue draining?

##No, no and no.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't mind decline with a reasonable explanation. But this one... it just doesn't fly.

As of today, review queue has hit over 60K, and it doesn't look like getting any better.

Per my observations, recent changes in close reasons made it substantially easier to make close decisions, but review queue continues to grow - why?

About a month ago, I have been #5 at Top Reviewers all time, at about 5K reviews, well above most of those behind me having "mere" 2-3K reviews. Today, I am #11, and everyone in Top 20 has over 4K reviews, and top 7 guys have all over 6K reviews.

This is great, this shows that there are reviewers who found the way to do it efficiently. But wast majority reviewers don't know about it, as indicated by pitiful 1-2 CV Steward badges a day - why?

In the absence of a reasonable decline, ##why don't you just give it a try?

Review flow for questions having duplicate votes / flags substantially differs from all other items, because no other items require reviewer to consider more than one question.

For reviewers unaware about filtering by close reasons, mixing two such different flows could significantly lower productivity (as discussed in more details in another post - by the way note comment right below this post, 'Wow. I never even saw the "filter" link...'").

^{Actually, this also somewhat impacts even those who filter their reviews: say if you set filter to not constructive, some reviews for duplicates will still leak through; this will happen to questions having both NC and duplicate votes / flags.}

Given above, suggest to firmly separate possible duplicate items from the rest, so that reviewer will be guaranteed to pass through items having consistent flow: either 1) only items having no duplicate suggestions or 2) only items having dupes (with the option to switch between mentioned "flows").

Proposed usability improvement is motivated by

##complaints about close votes queue being huge and growing:

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61

Per some estimates, it is going to take almost two years for it to come down to normal size.

I think the part of the problem is that often, new reviewers who could potentially help in handling it become disappointed and distracted by inconvenience of working with this queue. Not only newbies, even experienced reviewers note how frustrating is the experience working with close votes queue:

The size of the close votes queue is intimidating to me, and I tend to only go plow through that queue when I'm in a very good mood around once or twice a week, leaving tons of close votes that never get used the rest of the week...

_{When (if) review queue will drop to size making reviewers productivity less of a matter, suggested separation could be reconsidered.}

I think if it is possible to find out how many users with less than 1000 reviews are making less than 5-10 items a day average, this will indicate how many of them find this queue harder than it really is, and respectively, whether it is worth investing effort in making life easier for guys like that.

Thing is, with "filtered" flow getting golden badge in this queue is substantially easier than even Electorate or Fanatic, and there would simply be no sensible reason for them to run reviews that slowly.

Related to the filter statements; meta.stackexchange.com/questions/149434/… — Jack, Commented Feb 23, 2013 at 8:30
@Jack yeah that's the way they decided to handle questions having votes / flags for different reasons. I would even possibly believe this is a reasonable design decision, if only close votes queue wasn't so hopelessly slow to process — gnat, Commented Feb 25, 2013 at 6:55
I'm beginning to wonder if there might not be something in this... It'd be interesting to know how many of the questions have duplicate close votes on them. It is definitely significantly slower to assess a duplicate than any of the other close reasons. Then again, there's just so many it might not make that big a difference. Rosinante's "define a function: close(p) =" seems to be the quickest win. — ben is uǝq backwards, Commented Apr 10, 2013 at 20:20
"freaking easy golden badges..." - for comparison, Electorate badge is harder than CV Steward (assuming filtered queue), but even Electorate gets 3-4 users a day, against 1-2 for CV Steward - why? — gnat, Commented Jul 20, 2013 at 12:45
for the record - yet another suggestion how to deal with CV queue: Reputation for close votes — gnat, Commented Nov 13, 2013 at 6:32
for the record - yet another attempt to find out more about CV size issue: How many posts in SO CV queue aren't eligible for vote expiration, ie have no votes, only flags? — gnat, Commented Nov 14, 2013 at 7:54
for the record: yet another complaint about queue size: Close Votes review: I'm going on a strike! — gnat, Commented Nov 20, 2013 at 16:04
for the record: yet another concern about The Queue: Reward me for my community service — gnat, Commented Nov 20, 2013 at 21:14
for the record: yet another suggestion targeted to make it easier teach effective handling of The Queue: Allow direct linking to a filtered /review queue, and yet another: Display the number of pending review tasks created in the past 24 hours for the Stack Overflow close review queue — gnat, Commented Nov 20, 2013 at 21:54
for the recored, yet another suggestion to help with The Queue: Close review queue rep — gnat, Commented Nov 20, 2013 at 22:09
for the record, yet another discussion focused on The Queue: Regarding the Stack Overflow close review queue — gnat, Commented Nov 21, 2013 at 7:04
for the record, yet another suggestion for how to handle The Queue: Reduce the number of reviews needed to complete an item in the CV queue — gnat, Commented Nov 22, 2013 at 13:24
for the record, yet another suggestion on The Queue: For Reviewers: Notes and History — gnat, Commented Nov 22, 2013 at 16:10
@gnat Keeping 2 lists of posts about the close vote queue up to date doesn't seem all that productive (at least in my opinion), perhaps you should focus your effort on this answer, and probably link to it (it's better in that it also gives the title, as opposed to just numbers) (though ideally we should probably get a third question focussed solely on that, or post it as an answer to a more generic question). — Bernhard Barker, Commented Nov 23, 2013 at 14:56
@Dukeling that sounds like a good idea, I will probably do as you suggest — gnat, Commented Nov 23, 2013 at 18:29

apaul · Accepted Answer · 2013-07-30 03:25:53Z

I'm for most any method of streamlining the close vote queue, it is a little daunting from a newcomers perspective, I just hit 3k a few days ago and I'm still weeding my way through the close vote process.

To be honest I have noticed that I hit a bit of a wall with duplicates. Even using the filter they still pop up when there is split decision 1 or more votes for dup and one or more votes for another reason...

The user interface provided for searching for dups leaves a lot to be desired as well, it seems that the suggested dups rarely have any thing to do with the question at hand and the search provided there doesn't seem to be as reliable, so I have to open another browser window and search manually if I really want to tackle them.

Ultimately they do end up being a speed bump, and after a while it's tempting to just skip them entirely, or to just leave the queue.

I've only been at this for a few days and I already understand how someone could get really tired of this sort of thing.

David Fullerton · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-15 19:05:34Z

4

You can already filter down by close reason. Beyond that, I doubt we'd see a ton of improvement from pre-filtering it for you:

enter image description here

answered Feb 15, 2013 at 19:05

David Fullerton

37.6k8 gold badges98 silver badges109 bronze badges

6

well based on my past experience (details here, note comment right below the post, 'Wow. I never even saw the "filter" link...'") I wouldn't be that pessimistic about pre-filtering. Look, I was ready to drop reviews after 250 items passed without knowing about filter: 1) silver badge was good enough and, (most important) 2) efforts wasted on unfiltered queue were big enough to consider going further not worth it...
– gnat
Commented Feb 15, 2013 at 19:28
...If I was presented with pre-filtered queue from the beginning, it would go much much smoother and there definitely would be no desire to drop it, you see? For the reference, after I finally discovered the filtering myself, next 2000+ review items went easy-peasy, with only caveat about queue size dropping sooo slow, like "why can't all these guys make their 40 items in 10-20 minutes like I do"
– gnat
Commented Feb 15, 2013 at 19:28
10

It'd be nice if the filters were more apparent. I never noticed that little dealy myself
– Zelda
Commented Feb 15, 2013 at 20:23
...I think if you find out how many users with less than 1000 reviews are making less than 5-10 items a day average, this will indicate how many of them find this queue harder than it really is, and respectively, whether it is worth investing effort in making life easier for guys like that. Thing is, with "filtered" flow getting golden badge in this queue is substantially easier than even Electorate, and there would simply be no sensible reason for them to run reviews that slowly
– gnat
Commented Feb 15, 2013 at 21:57
2

@gnat The filter didn't exist at the beginning. I think it's especially easy to miss when you're used to the UI and weren't looking for a new feature (only indicated by a word in small type). It would definitely be worth making it more visible.
– Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
Commented Feb 17, 2013 at 10:11
@Gilles agree - it would be interesting to try a better visible filter. Though it wouldn't surprise me if this fails. You see, I didn't use filter even though I knew about it - I just didn't expect it to make much difference. I gave it a try only as a last resort before dropping reviews. That's why I'd rather bet on pre-filtering
– gnat
Commented Feb 17, 2013 at 16:37

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