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I failed an audit in the suggested edits queue today. No excuses on my part, it was (in hindsight) an obviously invalid edit and I wasn't paying proper attention.

However, what I found odd is that I got review banned for two days, with the usual message "You have failed too many recent review audits – looks like you might need a break. Come back in 2 days to continue reviewing."

As far as I can remember I've only ever failed three or four audits ever, and definitely not more than this one for at least the past few days.

Given that I failed one audit recently, all while passing a great number of audits, a review ban for 2 days for one failure strikes me as unreasonable.

Thoughts?

EDIT: Thanks Brad for looking into it - it seems the number of failed audits I've had in the past month is two (including this one). Seems somewhat extreme to me but understandable.

Now what I wonder is if there's any way for a certain number of passed audits in a row to cancel out a failed audit? It seems to me that that might help prevent situations where the occasional missed audit punishes a generally good reviewer (not necessarily me).

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    Frequently review suspensions are manual mod intervention, and I've observed them being more harsh on suggested edit audit failures because of how obvious they are.
    – psubsee2003
    Aug 29, 2013 at 12:40
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    That's a secret like the post ban formula is a secret... but three failures are probably enough, with other things like how fast you click are also considered, based on replies I saw in the past.
    – Shadow The GPT Wizard
    Aug 29, 2013 at 12:40
  • 3 or 4 I would also say, as that's how much I failed before getting a auto-ban. It might be 3 within a time frame since my very first failed audit had me stop reviewing for a month or two.
    – Jonathan Drapeau
    Aug 29, 2013 at 12:53
  • @JonathanDrapeau Even months ago, though? I can only remember two failures off the top of my head, and the one prior to today's had to have been weeks ago....
    – Mansfield
    Aug 29, 2013 at 12:56
  • I would have to recheck my review history completely to be sure but yes, my first failed was very far apart from the others. It might be a hard 3 too, why not make it simple? (K.I.S.S)
    – Jonathan Drapeau
    Aug 29, 2013 at 13:07
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    Nothing here jumps out at me. No moderator manually suspended you (and if we did, it would be for longer than 2 days), and I only see two failed audits in the last month. However, both of those were on suggested edits, which might weigh more heavily against you because of how obvious they are. Even moderators don't know the algorithm, and the developers are constantly tweaking it based on how users are hitting or avoiding the audits.
    – Brad Larson
    Aug 29, 2013 at 14:27
  • One thing I would say is that maybe you should slow down a bit with the suggested edit reviews. Beyond the audits, which should never be failed there, I found a couple of questionable approvals: stackoverflow.com/review/suggested-edits/2811155 , stackoverflow.com/review/suggested-edits/2811093 . While you're clearly not rubber-stamping everything, maybe this was a good warning from the system to take a little more time when reviewing.
    – Brad Larson
    Aug 29, 2013 at 14:34
  • @BradLarson Thanks for looking at it! I guess now my question becomes whether or not a certain number of passed audits can offset a failed audit...
    – Mansfield
    Aug 29, 2013 at 14:34
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    @Mansfield - Quite frankly, suggested edit audits should never be failed. They are pure gibberish. If they could be offset by passed audits, an inattentive reviewer could brute-force their way through the review queue.
    – Brad Larson
    Aug 29, 2013 at 14:38
  • @BradLarson Fair enough. Perhaps for the other queues it would make more sense....
    – Mansfield
    Aug 29, 2013 at 14:40

1 Answer 1

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I'm not gonna give a straight answer here, because we can (and have) changed it without notice... And also I don't want folks thinking that there's some "acceptable" number of failures that they should aim to stay just below.

...Oh, and also because it isn't a fixed number.

When you fail an audit, the review system looks at your past review history, and takes into account not just how many audits you've failed, but also a few other heuristics intended to help identify folks who've gotten careless or just aren't paying attention at all. If the results are sufficiently damning, you get a short break. If you come back and do the same thing, you get a longer break.

Also, moderators can ban you from review at any time for an arbitrary length of time, based on their own evaluation of the reviews you've been conducting. They might review your review history in response to flags, casual observations, or the results of the extensive review analytics they have access to. These bans also count toward the longer time-outs granted by the automated system, should you return and continue to struggle.

In general, you shouldn't worry about review suspensions; instead, focus your attention on the posts you're reviewing. If you fail an audit, take that as a small hint to slow down and give a bit more care to what you're looking at. These are meant to be educational tools to help you become a better reviewer, not punish you for bad behavior.

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    Thanks for the nice answer. I like the last sentence which is: "These are meant to be educational tools to help you become a better reviewer, not punish you for bad behavior." However I think it feels more like a punishment than an educational tool... :(
    – Neeku
    Jan 29, 2014 at 10:32
  • Review history should be clear after a while, for example: some one try to review posts and do some mistake get ban for 2-4-8 days. after a while if he is become a good reviewer only one mistake could ban him for 15 days. I think after a while history should be clear OR reviewing algorithm should be consider number of correct review to mistakes. thanks
    – Farhad
    Aug 19, 2017 at 3:20
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    It does, @aghilpro. Eventually.
    – Shog9
    Aug 19, 2017 at 3:21
  • Can you explain it how it work? I got ban for 15 days after that only one mistake could ban me for 30 days. what can i do?
    – Farhad
    Aug 19, 2017 at 7:56
  • Slow down and pay close attention to what you're reviewing, @aghilpro. The goal here is to avoid egregious mistakes; if you're reading the posts you're reviewing and skipping those you don't know how to handle, you'll be fine. Vast, vast majority of review suspensions are due to folks getting in a hurry and missing something obvious.
    – Shog9
    Aug 21, 2017 at 2:37

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