Since threads about review audits seem to be turning up fairly frequently now, it seemed like a good idea to open a thread to collect examples of those audits where people failed but feel like they should not have.
This serves both the purpose of getting at least a small idea of the scale of this (ie, how often does it happen), and also means that we will potentially get information enough to suggest concrete changes to the algorithms used for picking the audit cases (if this seems necessary).
Basis-free, field-independent definition of determinants?
I got a "STOP! Look and Listen." for attempting to mark it as a duplicate of this question. The irony is that this question was actually closed as a duplicate with the same question I suggested as a dupe target, and then reopened. I disagree with the reopening, but in any case I don't think the audit system should choose questions that had been closed before.
Failed this audit: https://math.stackexchange.com/review/first-posts/141607
I call BS; this is an adequate (if short) answer and I would in fact upvote it in preference to the accepted answer, if it hadn't been deleted.
Although this thread seems fairly quiet now, I have to report this one:
Although the Question has problems, these are not currently of the unclear what you are asking variety. No doubt the Question was properly closed and downvoted on that account, but subsequently it was edited in a way that makes the problem posed clear and precise.
I bring it up, not to argue for reopening, but to point out that the criteria for Review Audits do not seem to take into account post closure edits, other than to presumably require that the item remains closed currently.
Just got this one:
https://math.stackexchange.com/review/close/532401
The question shows no effort, starts out with "community, I need to solve the following problem" and then ends with (bold face) "I try several ways, and the hint given below but I have no luck to overcome this problem, I hope someone knows how to do it. It will be really appreciated if someone knows the actual proof, I'd like to learn how did they arrived that such a series converges. Thanks, and I will give some of my reputation for the actual proof. Thanks to all the community" Give me a break.
https://math.stackexchange.com/review/first-posts/1068861
The question is about the boundedness of manifolds embedded in Euclidean space, with closed curves being the motivating example. The answer reads
How is your definition of closed curve? If it just a continuous image of $S^1$ then it is compact, so bounded in $\mathbb{R}^n$
This would be appropriate for a comment (specifically, it appears that the answer is asking for clarification about what is meant by a "closed curve", then addresses only that part of the question).
https://math.stackexchange.com/review/close/1140429
This question, while it is nicely typeset and all, asks two questions at once. Therefore it should be closed as "too broad". ("Avoid asking multiple questions at once.")
I just encountered this queston in the Reopen Queue. I voted to leave closed, as it needs details; as it stands it's just a problem statement. Unfortunately I failed the audit, and I was supposed to vote to reopen. I disagree strongly enough to post this here.
I passed this one (the alleged closure reason was "too broad", which it's not, and the score was artificially $0$), but Monoids with left common multiples actually does lack context. What is the source of the OP's intuition (is there a special case where this holds)? What did they try?
Today I was asked to review an answer this question. The answer I was to review has been deleted. The deleted answer stated that the real number group may be equipped with the operation "$+$". I was warned that this was a bad answer. I am supposed to click the "I understand button." This I will refuse to do. It seems to me that is is an excellent hint for the problem.
I failed this reopen audit. The question was closed as "unclear," although I think it's perfectly clear what's being asked (and contains some initial thoughts from the OP about the issue).
https://math.stackexchange.com/review/close/929400
The system claimed it's marked with unclear what you're asking, but I voted to close this question for off topic due to the question writer's lack of response to another user's question "What did you try? ..."
https://math.stackexchange.com/review/close/959283
I failed this Review Audit for the Close queue, but curiously it seems a different user is shown passing it! However I'm using it to call attention to the mechanism of changing the imputed Close Reason.
The Question had been closed as unclear what you are asking but shows in review as (potentially) too broad. While one might agree that asking something which is essentially an immediate application of the defintion (Why is the sequence of Fibonacci numbers countable?) leaves Readers wondering what the problem is really asking, it is clearly something that can be answered (and was) in brief but detailed fashion.
I just wanted to point out the strange alteration of the actual close reason. It seems to me many "false negative" reviews use primarily opinion based as the proposed close reason, which I suspect is one of the least actually used reasons, and "too broad" strikes me as a less rare but still infrequent case.
https://math.stackexchange.com/review/late-answers/1225713
The question is asking for references. A reference is given, with enough context to know that the answerer has not read the book themselves, but found the table of contents useful. This is not a great answer, but is certainly an answer to the question, and not poor enough (in my opinion), to be considered a "low quality answer". Frankly, the question is the problem, not the answer.
I got this one: Maximal value of dimension. I voted to close because of "his question is missing context or other details".
https://math.stackexchange.com/review/first-posts/929848
It came up as a first post and I intended to close it, either as unclear what you're asking, or as off-topic.
The problem itself is terribly worded, as most answers discuss. The question also shows no thoughts or effort whatsoever.
Turns out it has 24 upvotes.
I've commented on an answer to a question about division by zero from a person in the 9th grade saying that the answer may be hard to understand by the OP and I failed because I should have not commented.
I suggest that this specific answer is removed from the test list.
https://math.stackexchange.com/review/close/1201934
I voted to close the question as being "Too Broad." In general, I think that questions beginning "What kinds of mathematics can be done with [insert topic here]?" are not really good for this site (I'm curious---is there a consensus on this?). Even if the community ultimately feels that this question is appropriate, I don't think that it is a good audit question.
I failed this audit today:
Is $x_1^2+x_2^2+\ldots+x_{2020}^2=-1$ solvable in $\mathbb{Q}(\sqrt[3]{2}\zeta_3)$?
This post is a standard example of problem-statement questions with no context such as what the OP has tried and where the question comes from, yet it received 5 up votes and was put into review audit. I have cast a closure vote on it.
This question appeared in the low quality review queue, and I failed the audit because I voted to close the question. I was instructed "You should have said "looks okay"."
The question is not okay. It includes no context, no considerations from the OP, nothing, just a question asking others to give them the desired example/counterexample.
This question from nine years ago no longer represents an appropriate audit post, given it demands a user to conclude "looks okay", in order to pass the audit:
https://math.stackexchange.com/review/close/1709668
My comments: This does not exemplify a good question, as it violates the quality standards of the site, and is no longer valid as a representative of a post no one should close.
This post was acceptable, at the time it was posted, so I do not seek it's closure/deletion. But it needs to be removed from the pool of review audits.
https://math.stackexchange.com/review/first-questions/1736611
The audit system considers this a good question, presumably because both the question itself and its top answer are highly upvoted. However this question clearly lacks focus, so I flagged it as lacking focus and failed the audit.
It contains at least three questions, (1) what is an elementary example of a coalgebra; (2) how to define a coalgebra without the language of category theory; (3) what is a comultiplication, and why is it the dual of the multipliation. In addition to these, it also includes a side question about how to "de-categorify" a definition. While an expository article about coalgebras can probably answer all these questions to OP's satisfaction (indeed the top answer seems to be exactly that), the question itself still lacks focus and should be pared down.
I missed this one:
For me, it looked like a text and an image, somewhere behind an image link.
So I wanted to edit the question in order to see both the text and the image on one screen.
... but apparently that's wrong! Pressing the Edit button on an audit test causes you to fail the audit.
Latest dubious audit question: https://math.stackexchange.com/review/close/202870
Yesterday I failed this audit in the following way : The answer was presented as a First Post. I spent some time to understand the chain of ideas and conclude that it is a mathematically correct answer. Although I estimated (and still do) that it deserves more explanations. I don't believe it would be accepted either as an answer in a school test not in a peer-review article. As it was presented as a First Post, it is logical to react and ask for improvement. Therefore I wrote a comment and got the "STOP ! Look and listen" message before I could select to keep the answer.
Question link: Proving $x^2+x+1\gt0$
Review link: https://math.stackexchange.com/review/low-quality-posts/1042494
Screen capture:
When I got to this question, I actually opened up the post to see the score and the close votes of the post (I almost always do that when reviewing, unless the post is really bad and obviously deserve to be closed).
However, although this question is well-received, I think that this question is pretty much opinion-based, as it asks for as many ways to prove $x^2+x+1>0$ as possible.
I decided to vote to close as "primarily opinion-based" and of course I failed the audit, luckily I hadn't failed any other audits in the last 30 days.
At this point, I'm not really sure if there is a "close vote guidelines" about this type of questions that ask "as many ways as you can think of", or maybe I'm a bit too strict.
I failed an audit regarding an answer to the question "Is there a name for categories whose objects are sets?" because I thought that the answer was short and I commented asking to expand it a bit.
In my case, the comment was not negative and it was within the usual scope of the comments: to ask for more information.
Furthermore, I based my reasoning on the fact that the question was present for almost a month, and in these cases I think that it is even more important that the answer should be more detailed to benefit other users besides the original poster.
This one: https://math.stackexchange.com/review/late-answers/1522462
Angle 30 can be constructed, through drawing an equilateral triangle, constructing angle 120, bisecting it multiple times and getting angle 30. Is it possible to contruct 3 degrees using geometric theorems and how?
The solution being reviewed reads essentially "A pentadecagon is constructible, and after you bisect its 24-degree slices 3 times, you get 3-degree angles."
The "right answer" is that it is very poor quality.
I beg to differ. The worst anyone could say for this is that it is not totally self-contained, but I think we'd all agree the construction of a regular pentadecagon is unnecessary. It is concise, workable, and on the same level as the asker's context.
Another gem. The question was whether to close it as unclear, and the answer was clearly no — the OP is explicitly asking how to construct such a completion. This was so obvious that I foolishly didn’t bother to check the original. It turns out that the line How might I go about this? was added by someone else, and the original question was genuinely unclear.
https://math.stackexchange.com/review/close/1242652
I actually think that this question is interesting, but it suffers a bit from being overly broad. I voted to keep it, but can see the other side of the argument, as well. I don't think that it is a good audit question, as there is a reasonable argument which could be made in favor of closure.
I failed the audit in the "Close" review queue when asked about this question post.
After the revisions, it already demonstrates the asker's effort. It should no longer be closed actually, but I'm not confident in the re-opening process so posting here anyway.
