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I know there is a problem of people skipping too rarely, but is it possible to skip too often?

Sometimes while doing review queues I am really not motivated enough to invest a ton of work into improving half-hearted edits or first posts. I then find myself using the skip button on many posts I could easily improve with some work, but instead skip to the ones which require almost no work. In these moments there is always a war raging in my brain between these two arguments:

  1. By decreasing the amount of reviews in the queue, I am still contributing.

  2. I make reviewing for others worse, because I pick the easy reviews and leave the others for other people.

So, which action is preferable when I am in that lazy mood? Continue picking quick reviews or not review until some other day when I feel more motivated?

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  • 5
    Assuming that the posts you do review, receive reasonable attention, how can doing at least part of the work be a bad thing? If you view reviewing as just trying to get some badges, then taking the easy ones could maybe be viewed as a problem, but you are not reviewing just for the badges are you?
    – Stephen Rauch Mod
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 0:55
  • 2
    @StephenRauch If I imagine everyone doing this, nobody would be doing the nasty reviews, so already it doesn't pass the Kant test. Additionally it might make people not review as often because it is frustrating spending your precious time with nasty edits.
    – Neuron
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 1:02
  • 6
    @StephenRauch I don't review for badges. I like to tell myself I do reviews for altruistic reasons, but being bored is probably more of a factor than I'd like to admit. Also gamification does it's job, so while badges are not why I review, they certainly help ;)
    – Neuron
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 1:05
  • 4
    Last year there was a discussion about potentially excessive skipping in the context of the Help and Improvement queue. At the time that queue had a crazy number of posts that had been picked over in a manner similar to what you are describing here. The queue has been reshaped such that this is no longer true. So I would suggest doing what you can, and if your behavior becomes the norm and problematic in some way, hopefully management will make some changes.
    – Stephen Rauch Mod
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 1:14
  • 6
    Skipping questions do not reduce your quota, and neither will it dequeue the review from the queue. Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 3:03
  • 57
    "I make reviewing for others worse, because I pick the easy reviews and leave the others for other people." Any review that you handle is better than none at all, so please take action on whatever you feel you can handle correctly. Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 3:05
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    Don't assume that your difficulty scale is shared by everyone. The hard ones for you could be the easy/fun ones for someone else.
    – Knu
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 14:03
  • 4
    An hard review for you may be an easy review for someone else, depending on the technical background of the reviewers. Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 14:04
  • 3
    It's telepathy at this point. Uncanny :) Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 14:06
  • 1
    @Knu with "easy" I was not talking about difficulty, but amount of effort required to salvage the post. This will be the same for anyone else, as some posts just require a lot of work to be at least OK posts. I am talking about those posts where the grammar is so poor, you don't know what the person is talking about, the code indentation is all over the place and there are typos and spelling mistakes
    – Neuron
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 14:10
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    @LonelyNeuron You are basically volunteering your time. If you are comfortable handling the "easy" tasks, nobody is going to judge you. As Samuel said, Any review that you handle is better than none at all. Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 14:16
  • 3
    @Jean-FrançoisFabre A "hard" review is almost certainly going to be an easy review for someone else, but only because most reviewers aren't going to do a good job on really hard reviews that merit spending a lot of time. They'll take a quick action (whether correct or not). What action that is will depend on the queue and the post. For example, in suggested edits, if it would take a bit of research and investigation to figure out of a given edit is correct or not, you can probably be sure it'll just be accepted by someone who doesn't do said research if you skip it.
    – Servy
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 14:22
  • 2
    @LonelyNeuron I'm not saying it's wrong to skip it. After all, you're not obligated to review at all. There is no expectation of you doing any work (only that whatever work you do do is correct). Skipping a review because you aren't interesting in taking the time to review it properly is perfectly fine. I just think that in most situations it's wishful thinking to think that the next person is going to put in said work (because such a small percentage of reviewers are willing to put in said work).
    – Servy
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 14:28
  • 1
    @BSMP I think it's more a question of when domain-specific knowledge is required, rather than an unclear question. I tend to skip questions in the queues about languages I don't know well, but if it's not clear from an English comprehension point of view, then I'll still vote-to-close as Unclear.
    – TylerH
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 16:59
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    I dont think that reviewing for badges and skipping hard ones would be a bad thing. It is always good to help community no matter why you're doing it. Must add this xkcd.com/810 :) Commented Apr 25, 2018 at 22:43

3 Answers 3

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There is no shame in using "Skip". Lazy is not doing any review task at all (and lazy is okay!).

After around 7000 Low quality posts reviews, I still enjoy that queue, and sometimes skip a several reviews in a row when I'm not sure, for instance when the technical aspect is totally unknown to me and the case is a little more subtle than "I have this problem too". But the same review could appeal to someone skilled in that technology. So the review may be easier for someone else: leave some for others.

If you're skipping at lot, at least you're processing some. No one is in for the badges either, even gold, as they don't give more power (like tag badges do) even if it "counts" when candidating for mod election, but after 1000 reviews, there's nothing more... so picking the "easiest" ones is an option.

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    Though review badges do give you a higher 'candidate score' in Moderator elections, as much or as little as that might weigh in someone's favor...
    – TylerH
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 14:42
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    "No one is in for the badges either" I would not be too sure about that
    – Neuron
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 14:45
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    Maybe I'm too optimistic. I personally don't care. that's only my opinion. Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 14:55
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    But you enjoy the Low Quality queue. Surely it must have left some mental scars? At times I can't even reach the bottom of the front page without running out of down/closevotes.
    – Jongware
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 15:34
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    @usr2564301 I'm fine thanks :) you cannot downvote in the VLQ, unfortunately. But it certainly takes some delvotes. Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 15:52
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No, it's not a problem to "skip" too often. Skipping is recusing yourself from weighing in on the state of a question or answer (depending on the queue). As Stack Overflow does not require you to review (despite recent efforts to encourage it via the UI), there's no harm or danger in not reviewing.

However, visiting the queue and doing nothing but skipping might raise the question of why one is visiting the queue in the first place...

Skipping review items does not count toward your completed or attempted reviews for the day. Skipped items do not show up in the review queue history or get tallied anywhere that users can see, and of course do not count toward any badge progress awarded for number of reviews (such as Steward).

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    There's also the scenario where you enter the queue with every intention of getting work done, only to find that all of the first 10 or 20 items you come across are way out of your league, you skip them all, then leave the queue (I wouldn't call this giving up, but being smart enough to realize you might be wasting your time and quitting while you're ahead).
    – BoltClock
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 16:45
  • @BoltClock That's fair, though if you always feel out of your league and leave before you can attempt one... you'll never get to the point where you're not out of your league.
    – TylerH
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 16:59
  • I've had this happen to me. It would turn out that I just wasn't in the right frame of mind to do reviews and I hadn't realised it until I tried to start. Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 18:26
  • @TylerH I disagree. I can think of two reasons why someone feels a question is "out of their league." 1. You're not familiar with the site norms enough to feel confident in your reviewing abilities. My suggestion here is to lurk Meta for a few months. Read answers and especially pay attention to what general assumptions and assertions they make and how they go about reaching a conclusion. 2. The subject matter of the question is unfamiliar. In this case, I'd recommend filtering to languages you're a little beyond proficient in and studying other technologies if you're interested.
    – jpmc26
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 18:42
  • Neither of those situations requires you to struggle through a review queue to improve.
    – jpmc26
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 18:43
  • @jpmc26 I'm not sure how that's a response to what I said; I was responding to BoltClock's scenario of skipping through 10 or 20 items and leaving without voting once. I totally agree with you there are multiple reasons for someone feeling out of their league when visiting a review queue and seeing a question.
    – TylerH
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 18:49
  • @TylerH Because it suggests the way to get past "always feel[ing] out of your league" is not to stay in the queue and keep trying, but instead to educate yourself about the expected behavior and the subject matter.
    – jpmc26
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 18:52
  • @jpmc26 Actually if you'll read what I said, I say that staying in the queue and trying is the way to get past it, not the opposite.
    – TylerH
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 18:53
  • @TylerH ...Exactly, and I am saying that's not correct. I don't understand why you don't think that's a response. Did I typo somewhere? Is something I said unclear?
    – jpmc26
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 18:54
  • @jpmc26 Unclear. So you're essentially saying that never reviewing is a valid way to eventually feel competent in reviewing?
    – TylerH
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 18:58
  • @TylerH I'm saying that if you don't feel competent in reviewing, you should educate yourself outside of the queue, then come back and try again. But in particular if you don't know the site rules/norms, you are probably better off staying away from the queue for a while until you have some better idea of what they are.
    – jpmc26
    Commented Apr 10, 2018 at 19:01
  • Yes, there are some things to learn before you start reviewing, but just as in all other things, you often learn best by doing.
    – TylerH
    Commented Apr 12, 2018 at 19:32
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Absolutely. Skipping items in the queue is possible for a reason. My view is that any review task you finish, no matter how simple or effortless, is still a contribution that is valued. Skipping due to lack of time, motivation, knowledge or any other reason is perfectly acceptable.

A nice option for me has been to try and get a couple of more time-consuming review tasks done early in my queue, so I can freely skip other more difficult or demanding ones and do the ones that seem easier afterwards.

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