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This audit is just flat out stupid. It is a valid answer with a code example and good reasoning, although it may not be the right one from a technical perspective, but: THAT IS NOT THE POINT OF REVIEWING. Reviewing is about catching the awful answers, the ones with awful formattning, the ones that aren't real answers. This answer was fair, although maybe incorrect. Again, that doesn't matter – this question was vague and the answer all right in style, validity and from any reviewing perspective.

I'm getting real tired of these stupid audits (all right, some are fine, this one – and a lot of others aren't). I have complained previously, and I will continue to complain until something is done about it.

Fix the audit system, or at least make audits fair, not like this one.

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    While I agree that the audits could use some work, I disagree that there isn't some technical aspect when reviewing answers. If I'm not familiar enough to judge whether an answer, especially one that has 2 downvotes, is technically accurate, I will use the skip button. The point of reviewing is not to get credit for the review, but to make sure the site has quality posts, so technical merit has to come into play on answers.
    – psubsee2003
    Commented Feb 17, 2013 at 23:41
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    You can always write a user script to detect audit :P
    – nhahtdh
    Commented Feb 17, 2013 at 23:58
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    That defeats the entire purpose of audits..
    – Emil
    Commented Feb 17, 2013 at 23:59
  • It has legit (and not legit) use - if you are doing review properly, it is just a tool. Someone who don't want to do proper review but want the badge can also wipe up such user script and use it to robo-review to increase count.
    – nhahtdh
    Commented Feb 18, 2013 at 0:02

3 Answers 3

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The "Not an Answer" flag that was cast against the answer you reviewed should have been declined, since it was clearly an answer, just a wrong one.

Sorry about that.

We've all been asked to be more strict about flags that are being used improperly, and this is one of the reasons why. Because answer you audited was deleted by a mod in response to a "Not an Answer" flag, it caused the flag to be automatically accepted as valid. Hence, when you took no action, you failed the audit, since the only reasonable response to a genuine non-answer is to recommend deletion.

We will be more careful about handling such flags in the future. In the meantime, you should still get your review privileges back in a few days, and there are a couple of other things that we can do behind the scenes if you are still blocked.

We appreciate your efforts to help keep the site clean. Audits were put into place because of a small handful of users that were gaming the review system to earn badges. It is unfortunate that a few people who chose to abuse the review system have caused it to become so strict for the rest of us.

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    I failed a review audit recently, I went to edit the post and got a message saying the post had been deleted. So I clicked on no action needed, as I figured it was already deleted. It was a review audit and I failed lol
    – user310756
    Commented Jul 12, 2013 at 18:02
  • Yeah, the review audits expect you to take the appropriate action, the action that was taken originally. That's why it doesn't reveal that the post was deleted in the audit; you surfaced that information when you went to the post directly.
    – user102937
    Commented Jul 12, 2013 at 18:04
  • So editing the post was wrong? I was editing for code format or grammar and going to downvote (which I sometimes do); Obviously I should downvote first ;) actually it does show a hole in the system as a whole :)
    – user310756
    Commented Jul 12, 2013 at 18:07
  • Hm? The audit was expecting you to delete, I would imagine. Any negative action would have passed, including a downvote.
    – user102937
    Commented Jul 12, 2013 at 18:09
  • No, I don't think so, I cannot find my audits, is there a way I can find my review audits?? It was recent and I had two audits in quick succession, one pass.one fail, not necessarily in that order
    – user310756
    Commented Jul 12, 2013 at 18:10
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I can't agree with this you on this one. The answer is Objective-C code; there's a comment right below it that says "ObjC code isn't applicable to this question", and you can see from the question itself that the comment seems to be correct.

The correct review action here would be a downvote -- the answer is not helpful.

It's also not a particularly good answer, composed as it is of nothing but two lines of code. Even without that context, a comment along the lines of "Please add some explanation to your answer" would be better than no action.

Finally, I disagree that technical considerations should be ignored when reviewing. All aspects of a post should be under consideration.

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  • Sue me if I'm wrong, but when reviewing this I can't remember to have seen any comments nor downvotes on the post, can this be right?
    – Emil
    Commented Feb 17, 2013 at 23:37
  • Dunno; they're there when I follow the link from your question.
    – jscs
    Commented Feb 17, 2013 at 23:38
  • Of course they are, however I don't believe they show comments and votes when reviewing an audit – another point to fix about audits.
    – Emil
    Commented Feb 17, 2013 at 23:39
  • When looking at other fresh posts in the First Posts, I'm seeing the comments and the question with which an answer is associated. If you're saying they're not shown on audits, then you're right, that's borked. You should go looking for the context in that case, however; otherwise, frankly, you're not doing a real review.
    – jscs
    Commented Feb 17, 2013 at 23:43
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    Emil didn't fail this audit because he didn't downvote; he failed the audit because a moderator chose to delete the answer in response to a "Not an Answer" flag, and Emil chose to take no action, since it is clearly an answer, just the wrong one. Auditors are not penalized for failing to downvote.
    – user102937
    Commented Feb 18, 2013 at 0:19
  • @RobertHarvey: Wouldn't a downvote have meant passing the audit? Or what would the "passing" action have been in this case?
    – jscs
    Commented Feb 18, 2013 at 0:23
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    I'm quite certain that votes are not considered during audits. The passing action would have been to do the same thing the moderator did (recommend deletion). Mods have broad discretionary powers, but this is an edge case that may make me rethink my approach a little. We've already been asked to be more strict about how flags are used, and this flag was misused; since the flagger indicated that the post was not an answer when it clearly was, the flag should have been declined.
    – user102937
    Commented Feb 18, 2013 at 0:24
  • Moderators shouldn't be dealing with these kinds of answers anyway, especially if a side-effect is causing someone to fail a review audit.
    – user102937
    Commented Feb 18, 2013 at 0:32
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    @RobertHarvey, Austin Henley's complaints about audits indicate that an upvote counts as a fail. I'm surprised that audits are so strict in the failing direction -- it would seem to me that any "corrective" action on a post that comes up for audit should be sufficient.
    – jscs
    Commented Feb 18, 2013 at 0:32
  • You might be right, but in this case an upvote would be morally equivalent to "take no action." The failing trigger is still the moderator deletion.
    – user102937
    Commented Feb 18, 2013 at 0:34
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    @RobertHarvey: Right, so I'd think that downvoting would be morally equivalent to recommending deletion. The whole system is just weird to me, and I've largely been avoiding it.
    – jscs
    Commented Feb 18, 2013 at 0:35
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    Well, downvoting and deletion are not the same thing at all, and I'm not entirely sure that Emil would have passed the audit, even with a downvote. That's the problem with "Not an Answer" flags on answers that clearly are answers; the only reasonable action for a valid "Not an Answer" flag is deletion.
    – user102937
    Commented Feb 18, 2013 at 0:38
  • There's nobody from corporate around right now, but I'm hearing from another mod that audits are forgiving; any negative action would have been deemed a "pass."
    – user102937
    Commented Feb 18, 2013 at 0:41
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When reviewing - "properly" reviewing - you read the Q&A's... then decide...

Fair enough this sometimes in the mean time you think a reject is in order and it gets approved, then rollback the post if you feel necessary. Unless there is a malicious change to a post, or it's just blatantly a vast improvement of a post changing tags and putting code blocks in...

A "quick review" might take me 10 seconds (to look at what's in the Q/A), apart from that - another might take me 2 minutes of reading context - then if I can't decide either way - I skip.

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