5

I have recently started reviewing the Low Quality Posts queue, I recurrently get the feeling that sometimes, the most positive course of action is to notify the author.

Do authors get a notification in a meaningful way, when their post is flagged as Very Low Quality?

What can we do to improve the awareness about low quality posts?

12
  • No but downvotes and comments help notify them (if they care).
    – Burgi
    Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 11:23
  • Am I correct to assume leaving a comment for them triggers an email notification?
    – user477799
    Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 11:25
  • @FleetCommand Comments do not send email notifications. Email notification about comments
    – DavidPostill Mod
    Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 11:50
  • Okay. What can we do to improve awareness of low quality posts?
    – user477799
    Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 12:39
  • Ping the author. That's all you can do.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 12:56
  • Any genius ideas about how this could possibly become better?
    – user477799
    Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 14:12
  • I assume you mean something other then, attempt to guide the author's of the low quality post into improving the quality of their post, and by doing so get accused of some awful things by those authors, and as a result of trying to improve these so called questions start to see the world as it actually is? It hasn't worked for me so far. Sadly if you don't attempt to allow the users to fix their own posts, they will just submit the same quality posts over and over again, this is most often the case of a user who submits more then 12 answers in a single day.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 16:14
  • 2
    Wow! Aren't we a ray of sunshine now? I am not saying I don't believe you; just an hour ago, I was accused to sabotage for replacing a dead link with a working one. I miss Wikipedia. Everyone assumed good faith in each other and the software was so solid.
    – user477799
    Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 18:08
  • 2
    @FleetCommand - I once was accused of being rude for submitting a comment, and the only comment I had made at the time, was the one that is automatically generated by the review system. Of course my personality resulted in my foot, being inserted into my mouth, but thats a different story. I might have become addicted to having my foot in my mouth though because of the review system
    – Ramhound
    Commented Feb 22, 2017 at 18:12
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    This is exactly the problem: In Wikipedia, sending impersonal messages (as you say it, generated by the system) is discouraged and its existing impersonal message tags are constantly peer-reviewed and improved.The reason is: It is discovered that they have the effect you described.
    – user477799
    Commented Feb 23, 2017 at 6:56
  • @FleetCommand - If I select a reason (so other reviewers of the review understand the reason I want to delete the content) a comment is submitted, if I select no reason (so the other reviewers have no idea the reason I want to delete the content) a comment is not generated, either way I have found people will complain because they don't actually want to hear feedback on their content.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Feb 23, 2017 at 16:23
  • @FleetCommand, getting back to your question, the system doesn't alert an author if their post is in a review queue. A comment results in a notification in their message box, including a visual indicator of new messages there. An edit will also produce a notification in the message box. Downvotes will show up under the topbar rep icon if the person bothers to check there. The actions will also be visible on their profile page, if they bother to look there. There have been suggestions about adding a feature to generally contact an author in some way, but that doesn't exist yet.
    – fixer1234
    Commented Feb 23, 2017 at 23:31

1 Answer 1

6

In many cases, you don't have to do very much at all. In the Low Quality Posts queue, you can choose from a list of canned comments when recommending deletion. Like any other comments, these produce inbox notifications for the post author. If that user has the "email me my unread inbox notifications" preference turned on, they'll receive an email after some length of time that contains all the inbox messages they haven't read. Comments do not send immediate email notifications, but they are included in those general mail messages.

email config

If the user doesn't have that preference enabled, and if they don't check back, it's unlikely that they're sufficiently invested in their post to care about the site's standards. In that case, you can't do anything, alas.

If nobody comments on the post before it's deleted, it's unlikely that the author will notice anything amiss. This is why I try to always leave comments with helpful information/links when flagging/voting for deletion.

If you're not a fan of any of the canned comments, writing your own is great! Excessive cheeriness and explicit welcomingness, though discouraged in questions and answers, make users feel much better and more likely to take your advice. Directing people to the tour and How to Answer is helpful. Tip: you can use [tour] and [answer] as shorthand for those links, respectively.

Relevant MSE: Notify answer OP when answer is deleted.

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  • When I see a poor quality post with no votes or comments or reports on it, I'll leave a comment advising they correct/change/improve/etc, and leave it be unless it is sufficiently bad to require a flag right then. If I see a poor quality post which has already been constructively commented on and it has been a day or so and has not yet been improved or there has been no other interaction or response from OP, I'll always flag to close or delete. Commented Mar 6, 2017 at 18:07

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