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Earlier today, Shog9 described a new system where "very low quality" flags on questions now don't feed the Low Quality Posts review queue, but instead send things into question triage. Within the Help and Improvement queue, reviewers can now flag something as "very low quality" to kick it back into triage.

This seems to change the usage of "very low quality" flags on questions (not answers). It now seems this flag is a general quality signal, not a specific flag directed at moderators. As a result, I'm not sure how to handle these when we see them, or if we're even supposed to deal with them right away.

In the past, we had been encouraged to treat "very low quality" flags as a request for immediate deletion of a particular piece of content. If a question did not require immediate moderator intervention (usually deletion), or the community could handle such a question by themselves, we tended to decline these flags. Moderator flags in general should be for things that only moderators can handle.

Is that still how we should be handling these flags? Should we wait to handle "very low quality" flags until the review queue has had sufficient opportunity to act on these? If so, how long should we let these sit to give the reviewers enough time to act on them?

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  • 1
    Do you actually see new VLQ flags on questions (raised after this measure was implemented) in mod queue? – user3717023 Mar 20 '15 at 18:10
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    @Woodface We have a separate bucket for VLQ so yes we see them. – Taryn Mar 20 '15 at 18:13
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    So Triage is essentially now the VLQ queue? – AStopher Mar 22 '15 at 21:34
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First off, you shouldn't be seeing VLQ flags newer than an hour in the flag queue*. If they're still in the queue after that point, it's safe to assume that they're not going to be handled promptly: even if the question made it into the close queue, it isn't being closed very fast.

Triage and close review are essentially positioned to act as a filter for you, eliminating most flagged posts that clearly need to be either closed or left alone before you see them.

So... You have a simple decision:

  • Is this an exceptional case where the community isn't able to get rid of trash fast enough? Delete.

  • Else, Decline.

What is "trash" in this context? Well, that's always a wee bit subjective, but given you're an experienced member of the site and active moderator for some time now, I'd generally trust your judgement: if you can click that Delete button without any reservations, then you should click it: the mere fact that you're not concerned about bypassing the "close" stage of the question's lifecycle is a pretty strong indicator that it is indeed very low quality.

*There are exceptions to this if another type of flag is on the question or you're explicitly filtering by VLQ, but let's ignore those for now.

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  • If a VLQ flag sends a question to triage and the outcome there is Unsalvageable, does that dismiss the flag as helpful? I would think it should, but your remark "even if the question made it into the close queue" suggests the flag lingers even after the Triage is over. – user3717023 Mar 20 '15 at 19:34
  • If decline is chosen, does the original user who cast the very low quality flag have their flag declined, or is it the last user who cast the flag (ie including the triage diagram arrow for consideration), or is it both/all users who cast the flag(s)? – Travis J Mar 20 '15 at 19:34
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    VLQ flags are currently only marked "helpful" if the question is actually closed @Woodface. Or deleted. Or, confusingly, edited - although that should probably be considered a bug. – Shog9 Mar 20 '15 at 19:35
  • Well. That made a lot more sense when they fed into Close queue than when the purpose is to re-triage the question. – user3717023 Mar 20 '15 at 19:35
  • They never fed directly into the close queue, @Woodface. – Shog9 Mar 20 '15 at 19:38
  • @Shog9 - I agree with "helpful" if it is edited, isn't that the point of the flag - to get exposure so that the post can be edited into something worthwhile? Perhaps only helpful if it is edited through the triage/improve queue? – Travis J Mar 20 '15 at 19:38
  • Well, that rationale is why it behaves as it does, although there's some debate as to whether that makes sense. Regardless, not a problem I'm going to solve today. – Shog9 Mar 20 '15 at 19:39
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    Perhaps the triage queue entry should be decoupled from the very low quality flag. – Travis J Mar 20 '15 at 19:45
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    Perhaps the triage queue entry should be decoupled from YOUR FACE, @TravisJ (um, why? I don't really have a response here, because I don't know what your concerns are. chat?) – Shog9 Mar 20 '15 at 19:56
  • Would it be possible to add some examples? I do realize that you are hesitant on the trash being subjective and a judgement call... but should things that are clearly off topic be declined or acted upon? Should questions that need substantial new material that only the original poster can provide be declined or acted upon? – user289086 Mar 21 '15 at 15:26

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