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This is something I've noticed for a while but I wanted to wait until I earned a Steward badge to show I have some 'skin in the game,' so to speak.

Of the review queues, Late Answers (LA) are by far the rarest. Typically about 20-30 appear in a given day and I count myself very lucky if I get to review one. However, I have noticed that a handful of users- all of whom have the corresponding Steward badge- account for the bulk of these reviews. In fact, these users typically review three to five each daily, though it is not uncommon for several users to review as many as eight or more. Unlike other queues, I feel the scarcity of LA makes this behavior inappropriate.

LA are fun to read. People often spend more time on them than run-of-the-mill answers and occasionally you see someone come back after a considerable amount of time and answer their own question. They are also a good way to interact with new users and to encourage patience and perseverance, two important mathematical attributes. I think more community members would benefit from reviewing them.

To summarize, here are my requests.

If you have a LA steward badge, please consider not reviewing LA as soon as you see their notifications in the queue. In particular, please do not review many LA in a single day, as this deprives others for no tangible gain.

Update: with the change to Steward badges, I think this is less of an issue, but would still ask those with the LA Steward badge(s) to show restraint.

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    $\begingroup$ I always see an empty LA review queue (1 exception) ever since I got the privilege. I understand your concern, but does it really matter? Reviews aren't a major show-off material. Badges kind of are. And you can't convince thousands of users with that privilege, so it's pointless... $\endgroup$
    – UmbQbify
    Commented Jul 25, 2020 at 14:53
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    $\begingroup$ @UmbQbify-Key20- it's a bit hard to know. It's really just a couple of users that do most (thus the convincing is not for thousands but at least two orders of magnitude lower). Of course if these few would not, maybe another few would take over. But it's not clear either. $\endgroup$
    – quid Mod
    Commented Jul 25, 2020 at 14:59
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    $\begingroup$ @UmbQbify-Key20- I would guess the problem is localized to 5-10 users. It's not so much about the badge, it's about shared responsibility. IMO the site works best when many people perform moderation tasks. $\endgroup$
    – Integrand
    Commented Jul 25, 2020 at 15:08
  • $\begingroup$ The history of Late Answers review queue seems to bear out your observations, at least over the last 24 hours. $\endgroup$
    – hardmath
    Commented Jul 25, 2020 at 15:36
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    $\begingroup$ I think it would make more sense if the daily maximum for each queue should be proportional to the average no. of review (say for the past 10 days). Then everyone does less on late answer queue and more on closed vote queue. $\endgroup$
    – Arctic Char
    Commented Jul 25, 2020 at 16:15
  • $\begingroup$ @ArcticChar that is an interesting idea. Do you feel 20 votes is too few in the Close Votes queue? I've noticed it's been whittled down substantially in the past few weeks, though there are still over 100 pending. $\endgroup$
    – Integrand
    Commented Jul 25, 2020 at 16:20
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    $\begingroup$ IIRC the close vote queue very often has 100+ pending. It is definitely bad, since bad posts are better closed sooner than later. $\endgroup$
    – Arctic Char
    Commented Jul 25, 2020 at 16:24
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    $\begingroup$ I don't get the downvotes on this post! $\endgroup$
    – amWhy
    Commented Jul 25, 2020 at 17:58
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    $\begingroup$ It is unrelated to this thread, but I would like us six digit rep holders (if not already at the 25k mark, when all the privileges have already been earned) to show similar restraint elsewhere also. Including in answering mundane questions (that are also likely duplicates). The long term health of the site means that newer users also need to be able to climb a few rungs on the rep ladder. Let them. $\endgroup$
    – Jyrki Lahtonen
    Commented Jul 26, 2020 at 4:36
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    $\begingroup$ @Integrand I took your post to heart, and did not review any Late Answers today; I'll likely be lessening my reviews in other queues, too, save for the close queue. Thanks for posting this. Unfortunately, there are other users with thousands of reviews in the LA queue, who still continue to gorge themselves with more LA reviews, so I don't think my absence is going to do anything more than allow those particular users to gorge even more. One only needs to look at today's reviews in LA to know who they are. $\endgroup$
    – amWhy
    Commented Jul 26, 2020 at 21:20
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    $\begingroup$ I totally agree with your comment, as well, @Jyrki! $\endgroup$
    – amWhy
    Commented Jul 26, 2020 at 21:22
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    $\begingroup$ Thanks for considering @amWhy ! Though I can review only first posts, and late answers, I always prefer reviewing the latter if I get the chance. (I count myself really lucky to have done 6 reviews on the LA queue..) $\endgroup$
    – sai-kartik
    Commented Jul 27, 2020 at 6:45

2 Answers 2

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The general sentiment is something that I share. In my mind the review queues are a good entry point for starting to get involved in community moderation and also to stay involved in it for somewhat casual users.

Indeed, one can get the impression that some users use them as a playing-field to scratch some competitive itch. In my opinion, this is not at all ideal.

For users very involved with community moderation already, I consider it as better to focus on other ways to contribute, than to camp in review queues that are short anyway. They also have clear ways to do this as they do have access to "moderation tools" which provides all kinds of data about posts with open/close votes and alike.

Let me stress the fact that this is about short queues. The close-queue is a clear exception; there is an absolute lack of reviewers there and as many users as possible should review there. Maybe suggested edits is also a bit of a special case as it is quite time-critical.

To be clear, that is not a rule, but my opinion on the subject. As long as the quality of the reviewing stays alright, which sadly is not always the case, we obviously let users spend their time as they chose.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thank you for clarifying that my complaint applies only to short queues. For better or worse, there are plenty of opportunities to contribute in the other queues (even Reopen questions, the second rarest, are probably 10x as frequent). $\endgroup$
    – Integrand
    Commented Jul 25, 2020 at 15:07
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    $\begingroup$ quid: I think much of this problem would be solved if users were not ranked by "most number of reviews in this queue"... that wold de-incentivize any competitive motives for reviewing excessively beyond the "gold badge". Instead, like tag badges, those who've reached gold could be listed, but not ranked. $\endgroup$
    – amWhy
    Commented Jul 25, 2020 at 15:14
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    $\begingroup$ And unless users are no longer ranked by "those with the most number of reviews in this queue", I suspect the problem will not go away. I am very close to abstaining from reviews in the late answer queue, but without abandoning the ranking on this site, that would allow the most prolific reviewer in that tag to go even more unchecked, as he did during my 2019 absence. $\endgroup$
    – amWhy
    Commented Jul 25, 2020 at 15:18
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    $\begingroup$ amWhy, I like that idea. $\endgroup$
    – Integrand
    Commented Jul 25, 2020 at 15:25
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    $\begingroup$ @Integrand Thanks so much for bringing this up on meta. $\endgroup$
    – amWhy
    Commented Jul 25, 2020 at 15:27
  • $\begingroup$ @amWhy, can we make a feature-request post about it? $\endgroup$
    – sai-kartik
    Commented Jul 27, 2020 at 6:49
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From your question it seems that apart from the possibility to review in this queue, you also want to see the posts which went through the review.

Users with sufficient rep have access to the full review history.

However, even if you have lower reputation, you can get the posts which went through this queue using SEDE. For example, in this query you can get the questions in this queue between the given dates. (And by changing parameters you can also look at other review queues.) I will add the usual caveat that the data in SEDE are only updated once a week.

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