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I see a "review" link on the top of the page, which takes me to a few "review queues".

  • What is a "review queue"?
  • What are the various queues for?
  • What can I do in each queue?

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What is a "review queue"?

Review queues (also known as review tasks) contain posts that possibly need community attention, as determined by the system or other community users. You are shown these posts, one at a time, and you "review" them. Like flagging, there are badges for this.

So, what constitutes a "review"? It depends on the queue. The queues have one consistent option, though — the "skip" option. This permanently skips the post (you won't see it in the same review queue again) and is useful if you're not sure what to do.

Each user has their own copy of the queue — if you review a post in a queue, it is not necessarily removed from that queue for other users. It gets removed for all users after a few more reviews by other users (the exact amount depends upon the queue and review action done).

What are the various queues for, and what can I do in each?

Each review queue is designed to look at a certain aspect of the site at once, allowing users to interact with the community moderation process in different ways.

Late Answers and First Posts

The Late Answers queue contains answers which were posted much later than the question (and thus don't get as much attention, the purpose of this queue is to give them attention). The First Posts queue contains the first few posts asked by new users (who will probably need help learning to use the site).

In these queues, you can edit the post, flag it, upvote or downvote it, add a comment, or upvote a previously existing comment. When you take one of these actions, the I'm Done button becomes enabled, allowing you to complete review. If you feel that the post is fine as it is, but you don't want to vote on it (you're not that impressed with it, etc), then you can always click the No Action Needed button. If you're unsure about the post, please use the Skip button.

You gain access to these queues at the 500 reputation mark.

Note: These two queues do not exist on Meta sites (thus the reputation requirement is higher on MSO).

Low Quality Posts

The Low Quality Posts queue contains posts which were automatically determined to be of low quality based on several system criteria that generates a post quality score. It also contains posts that have been flagged for being extremely low-quality and answers flagged for not being proper answers. If you feel that a post is acceptable for the site and cannot be improved further, click the Looks OK button. Keep in mind that you can also post a comment before clicking this button.

If the post is acceptable other than a few formatting or grammar errors, you can click the Edit button to improve the post, which has an implied Looks OK functionality upon completion of your edits.

If the post cannot be salvaged, you have two options depending on whether the post is a question or answer:

  • Close for questions. Opens a menu that lets you choose a description for the problem that makes the question inappropriate. If you haven't earned the close privilege, you'll be offered a Recommend Close option instead - this carries no weight on its own, but puts the question in a queue for privileged users to confirm or decline.

  • Delete for answers. Opens a menu that lets you choose a boilerplate comment to place. You don't have to choose a comment, but if one fits the situation then doing so is a courtesy to the author of the post you're deleting. The comment chosen will automatically be posted on your behalf (unless the same comment already exists). If you haven't earned the trusted user privilege, you'll be offered a Recommend Deletion option instead - this will both prioritize the review task for others who can vote to delete and (if a sufficient number of reviewers all recommend deletion) can cause the post to be either deleted or forwarded to moderators for further review.

You gain access to this queue with the ability to edit questions and answers.

Close/Reopen Votes

Questions that may need closing/reopening appear in these queues. Questions with active close votes or close flags show up in the close queue, and questions with active reopen votes, as well as questions which have been edited after closing, appear in the reopen queue. Along with the moderator tools, this is one of the best ways to find posts that need closing.

In these queues, you have four options. You can try to fix a close-able question via the Edit button, which will automatically dismiss it from the queue. You can also cast your own vote to close on the question (in the case of the reopen queue, obviously the corresponding option is voting to reopen). Any time you are unsure of whether a post should be closed or reopened, you can and should Skip it to allow another user to review it. Finally, you can also choose Leave Open (or Leave Closed in the reopen queue). What does this last option do? If enough people vote to leave a question open or closed, the question is removed from the close/reopen queue (respectively) and immediately begins aging the existing close or reopen votes on the question (it does not clear them).

You gain access to this queue with the ability to cast close and reopen votes.

Suggested Edits

Users without enough reputation to edit have their edits placed in this queue. If two users approve an edit (if one rejects and one approves then it waits for more users to review it), then it is published. If you feel that the edit is:

  • too minor: not much added, the post was fine without the edit
  • vandalism: it made the post worse
  • radical change: it modified the post so that it may no longer be what the author meant it to be
  • invalid: it was probably supposed to be a comment or an answer
  • plagiarism: the edit is just a copy-paste from an external source without block-quoting and attribution

then, reject it as such.

You can also Improve a suggested edit when you notice that the post has other things which need to be fixed. While applying your further edits, you may also choose whether or not to mark the suggested edit as "helpful" (if not marked as such, the edit is rejected, though your improved edit still goes through). Too many rejected suggested edits block a user from suggesting more for a while; keep this in mind while rejecting edits.

You gain access to this queue with the ability to edit questions and answers.

See Also: How do suggested edits work?

Community Eval

This is mainly for beta sites, it is shown to them during community evaluation. On the 60th day of beta, and for every 90 days after that, this queue will be filled with a set of posts (picked more or less randomly), which you may to rate individually as "Excellent", "Satisfactory", or "Needs Improvement". The results of these evals are shown to moderators, who can gauge how well the overall post quality of the site is from this.

This queue turns up every 90 days on graduated sites as well. (This queue has been disabled for graduated sites)

share|improve this answer
    
@AustinHenley MSO should likely have a Last post queue –  gnat Jan 3 '13 at 20:54
    
I read elsewhere that you don't get a 'Review' link until you have reached 1000 rep, yet there are queues to which you have access well before that rep level (i.e., most of the ones mentioned in this post). How are you supposed to access those once you have the rep to be able to do so? Wouldn't it have been better to have the 'Review' link once you are able to access at least one queue and then have that page show only the queues to which you have access? –  RobH Jul 16 '13 at 16:23
    
@RobH No, now it's at 125 rep I think. That was the old review queue. –  Manishearth Jul 16 '13 at 16:29
    
@Manishearth: So, where's the link to the queues, then? Isn't there supposed to be one if you have enough rep? –  RobH Jul 17 '13 at 16:02
    
@RobH On the top of the screen. –  Manishearth Jul 17 '13 at 16:03
    
I don't see any review links there or anywhere else. My links at the top are Chat, Main/Meta, About and Help. That's it. (I'd ask you for a screen shot, but it seems that this site hosts them on imgur, which our corporate firewall blocks, so that won't work.) –  RobH Jul 17 '13 at 16:12
    
@RobH Do you have 125 rep on the site? –  Manishearth Jul 17 '13 at 16:17
    
I have 764 on SO and 307 on Meta, so if the link is supposed to appear when I have at least 125, then I should certainly see it on both sites. –  RobH Jul 17 '13 at 16:24
    
@RobH Huh. That's a bug, I think. It should be near the chat link. –  Manishearth Jul 17 '13 at 16:25
    
I just had another look, and I now see the link on SO, but still not in Meta. –  RobH Jul 17 '13 at 16:38
    
@RobH Meta only has edit/close/reopen queues, so you'll need 2k rep –  Manishearth Jul 17 '13 at 17:00
    
You say "the queue fills" every 90 days for beta sites, but I don't see the queue at all (for Pets beta). Is it possible that the queue's only shown then and not other times? I can see all the queues and the ones I aren't able to access yet are greyed out so I don't think it's a reputation thing (unless this queue is handled differently from the others in that regard). –  starsplusplus Feb 20 '14 at 12:15
    
@RobH do you get any rep from reviewing –  IP Address Apr 10 '14 at 11:52
    
@IPADDRESS: To be honest, I don't know, as I've actually not done any reviews yet. (There never seems to be any time.) You'd have to do some reviews yourself and see if that affects your rep. –  RobH Apr 10 '14 at 16:24
    
@RobH I was asking because that is my next privilege and i was thinking if you gain rep then its something to look forward too, right? –  IP Address Apr 10 '14 at 16:29

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