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I have been doing tasks on Stack Overflow for some time now, and I notice the following trend: there are at most 10 review tasks of each kind except for close votes where there at about 50,000 at any given time +/- 1000.

Review tasks screenshot 03/03/2013

Is there something currently worked on in terms of effort to bring the close votes tasks down in number?

I am not aware of what the current trend of incoming close requests is, but if we consider that no new close requests are coming in, all the existing close votes review items can be completed in one day by 4930 users. Calculation:

  1. 49.3k review items
  2. 40 maximum review tasks per day per person

  3. Four votes needed to complete the task (one is already given and assuming no other votes have been cast yet on either of the questions)

    49.3 / 40 = 1232.5 * 4 = 4930

So what I think can be done in order to achieve this:

  • Introduce a badge for maximum close votes review tasks completed in a day. In order to maintain this to keep up with the new incoming close requests then other badges can be introduced like 30 days with maximum close votes review tasks completed and maybe a 100 days.
  • Another option would be to reduce the number of votes needed to complete the close votes review item down from four to, let's say, three. This may potentially increase the number of reopen votes review tasks, because close votes would be completed faster and by less users.
  • Yet another option is to increase the number of close votes review tasks allowed to be completed any given day. As pointed out, people who finish their maximum review tasks daily are actually many and increasing in number.

The questions

  1. How can the Close Vote review queue be improved?
  2. Huge close votes review queue on Stack Overflow

are indeed very similar. However, they are left to be discussions. My question is intended to be turned into a based on the collective feedback from the three. The one open (#2) is actually asked after the first one which is a different type of discussion on whether the duplicate is not actually the second question. So far I have the most positive feedback on bullet number three of the suggestions I have given.

Based on this can the number of allowed closed votes daily be doubled based on the number of people that actually complete all the 40 review tasks each day? This would potentially effectively decrease the number of review tasks in the queue for close votes.

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  • 10
    Having a badge is a terrible idea as it encourages more robo-approvers (or, in this case, robo-'leave open'-ers).
    – Richard J. Ross III
    Mar 3, 2013 at 14:20
  • 1 is already given is not necessarily true, some of the posts in review-queue are flagged ones.
    – hjpotter92
    Mar 3, 2013 at 14:25
  • @RichardJ.RossIII I agree each suggested approach has pros and cons :(
    – Konstantin Dinev
    Mar 3, 2013 at 14:27
  • 4
    pls no moar review badges
    – Mat
    Mar 3, 2013 at 14:27
  • 3
    Regarding your last bullet point, if you go to the close votes stats page, the list on the left gets filled every day with people who use all 40 of their close votes. I think raising the limit would have at least a small impact.
    – Bill the Lizard
    Mar 3, 2013 at 14:27
  • @BilltheLizard I think so too, that's why I put it as a suggestion. I probably should edit my personal opinion out of the text.
    – Konstantin Dinev
    Mar 3, 2013 at 14:30
  • I was really just pointing it out in case you missed it. How much effect would be based on how much you increase the number of votes. Increasing it by 10 might have a negligible effect, but I think doubling it would have a noticeable impact.
    – Bill the Lizard
    Mar 3, 2013 at 14:32
  • @BackinaFlash That's probably not going to change the equation by much. There are at most a few hundred close flags in the queue at a time, and many of those already have close votes.
    – Bill the Lizard
    Mar 3, 2013 at 14:36
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    Maybe it the limit should be raised, but only once you've reached the 1000 that gets the gold badge - that way giving scope for committed reviewers to review more and not encouraging more robo-leave-opening.
    – Jon Egerton
    Mar 3, 2013 at 14:37
  • 1
    I see it more of a product of a lot of crappy close votes. There is a ton of questions closed for "too localized" all the time, when they clearly are not. Leave a comment, let the person improve or clarify his question, then vote to close if it is not happening. In some cases you can vote directly, but there is a torrent of non-warranted votes in my opinion. As it stands now it feels like tyranny of the masses in many cases. Giving them a badge for it just feels wrong.
    – Skurmedel
    Mar 3, 2013 at 15:34
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    @Skurmedel People have all the time in the world to write a good question before they post it. Closing it immediately if it's not a good question, then reopening it after the OP improves it is the correct workflow.
    – Bill the Lizard
    Mar 3, 2013 at 17:09
  • @BilltheLizard I am not talking about poor questions, I'm talking about perfectly good questions that get close voted.
    – Skurmedel
    Mar 3, 2013 at 19:03
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    @Skurmedel "Leave a comment, let the person improve or clarify his question, then vote to close if it is not happening." Why would that need to happen with perfectly good questions?
    – Bill the Lizard
    Mar 3, 2013 at 20:11
  • @BilltheLizard: Yes I am not being clear, yes that's two different cases. What I was mainly trying to say, there is a lot of unwarranted close votes; what is your opinion on that?
    – Skurmedel
    Mar 3, 2013 at 21:33
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    @Skurmedel Unwarrented close votes seem to be the minority. I'm closing about 80% of the questions I review. Even if you discount the unwarranted votes, we still have tens of thousands of questions that do need to be closed.
    – Bill the Lizard
    Mar 3, 2013 at 21:38

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