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If you browse to one of your own pending suggested edits, accessed from your user activity page, you are directed to the suggested edit in the review queue. Example: a review item. There, the message

This item is not reviewable.

is displayed. As written, the message may be patently false; I see by refreshing:

This item is not reviewable.

Jesus Ramos reviewed this 5 mins ago: Approve

I guess it was reviewable after all. Clearly, it's meant to say that the item is not reviewable by you, since you're the one who suggested the edit.

The same applies for things like Low Quality Posts tasks where you previously flagged the post, or Close Votes tasks where you voted to close externally, etc.

Please change it to something like "You may not review this item.".

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  • 1
    I think "You may not review this item." would be confusing due to its forceful tone. There's no reason why we can't be explicit; why not "You cannot review this item, as its review is already complete."?
    – user206222
    Commented Jul 9, 2013 at 8:05
  • So what happened here? Why not moving forward? Got this error message, and it was a bit vague at first.
    – László Papp
    Commented Dec 28, 2013 at 2:56

4 Answers 4

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I believe that "This item is not reviewable" could drive people away as it sounds forceful. Changing it to something more clearer like "You aren't allowed to review this item" could work. Maybe even something with a softer tone so the user doesn't feel at fault?

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    Maybe something like "You are not able to review this item" would be even less harsh; I think 'not allowed' can sometimes sound like the user is doing something wrong.
    – hat
    Commented Jul 25, 2020 at 10:50
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The message is misleading. I got it when I got a post in review, then voted on it outside the review, then returned to the review item. It made me think that I somehow broke the review process, so no other people can review that post now and it's stuck in limbo or something - so I initially thought about filing a bug.

Even "You cannot review this item" (if a more specific message is not practical) would not cause that kind of confusion.

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5

I definitely agree that this should be changed. This message is not at all clear. It's also wrong, because the item is reviewable (just not by you).

However, I'd make the message a little smarter, and explain why exactly one cannot review an item. For instance:

You cannot review this item because you have already voted on it.

...or:

Your suggested edit is pending review.

(That last message is shown to users without editing privileges.)

I often go looking for corresponding review tasks for votes or flags I cast. Also, I go check to see if there are any review tasks that I can't review that cause the review notification to show up or a nonzero number to show up on the main review page despite the queue showing as "cleared" when I actually go to it.

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5

We've added a less-confusing default case for messages like this:

Instead of "This item is not reviewable.", we've updated it to:

"You are not able to review this item."

That differs from "This item is no longer reviewable." which means it was invalidated in some way and became ineligible for a queue. This also differs from "You have already reviewed this item. It needs more reviews from other users to be completed." which you see if you've reviewed the item but it's not yet completed.

I love looking at a request that I'm responding to and seeing that it was made in 2013. :-| Better late than never, right? Thanks for the request.

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