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The current review system encourages fake reviews; some people upvote everything rather than actually fixing problems
I just saw this question pop up in the "review edits" queue. Take a look at the edit history, specifically edits 3 and 4.
Not one, but two successive reviewers have come along, taken the slightly weak English of the original, and made it worse. It actually got harder to understand with each edit. It's telling that the edits are so minor, as well: They're both barely above 15 characters, and that's if you count whitespace.
As I shook my head and reached for the "reject" button, I got a message saying that the edit had already been approved. One of the voters was Community, but two real users gave the OK. This happens all the time, and I'm hardly the first to notice:
There's no disincentive to messing up an edit. You can't downvote it, and once it's approved, there's no undoing it other than a rollback or another edit. But while you're doing that, whoever made the mess is off making six more -- and getting rep and badges for it.
I don't begrudge them the rep, but I don't want SO's quality to degrade, which it will if abuse is incentivized. Toss 50 junk edits in the queue, risking nothing, and some are bound to be approved. After all, approving them is incentivized too.
IMHO the whole incentive system for reviews needs to be removed or overhauled. If we can't do that, can we either:
- Allow voting (with reputation consequences) for suggested edits, or
- Allow flagging edits for moderator or community attention?
