As the close vote queue is nearing a brush with 0 (after many years of being at a ridiculously high number), I'm curious as to what the focus will be after this in the line of vast improvements that the community can contribute towards.

close vote queue

If I recall correctly, that number was 13k yesterday. If even half of that trend keeps up, we'll be down for the count (so to speak) within the next 7 days.

This was a major election point for the moderators during the last two elections (i.e. I will be committed to making a dent in the close vote queue) - and while I'm not denying there is a lot of success and truth to those statements - I'm interested in hearing what should be the focus when we reach what I think is a huge check-off on the moderation task list.

Another question is what are things we as non-moderators can focus on, especially for the lower reputation users (like myself) who try to contribute as much as possible? I realize I cannot personally help with the close vote queue due to rep requirements, but I still recognize it is a priority.

What are the next, most-wanted, site-wide issues that should be prioritized?

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Of course right as I post this it jumps back to 8.2k. The question still stands. –  Qix May 14 at 19:14
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Note that the number you see there has been greatly trimmed by the use of various automated metrics. In general, old questions don't hit that queue anymore. Shog9 has made noises about how closing is sort of a blunt instrument anyway. The most pressing priority at the moment is getting crappy questions off the front page. –  Robert Harvey May 14 at 19:14
    
@RobertHarvey: What's the current state of the queue and the current review rates? It looks like the queue size has been bouncing back for the past few days (6.7k was the lowest I observed). –  Kerrek SB May 14 at 22:00
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Please don't ever be suckered by mod candidates making that promise in the future. It was an easy promise for them to make but most of them had no idea of the mechanisms behind the queue. –  slugster May 14 at 23:37
    
@slugster I figured as much, I was looking more at the figures rather than their list of I will...'s –  Qix May 14 at 23:38

1 Answer 1

up vote 7 down vote accepted

The close vote queue is so much smaller because the close vote aging process was changed, and the vast majority of those questions were simply removed from the queue without any actions being taken.

It is also shrinking more quickly because the new close vote aging process is noticeably more aggressive at aging than before, so a higher percentage of posts are leaving the queue due to aging out, rather than because they're being handled.

Moderators of course don't have any responsibilities that affect the close queue, at least in any statistically relevant way. It was discussed a lot in the elections, but at the end of the day there is no way that an extra moderator or two will result in any meaningful change to the close vote queue. Their responsibilities as mods simply don't include closing tons of questions in the close queue. The vast majority of closures happen from non-moderator users, not moderators.

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So is the system 'archiving' old post flags and stowing them away until they can be processed? –  Qix May 14 at 19:16
    
Ah I see. I just remember seeing the review button for the first time a long time ago and seeing the queue in the hundreds-of-thousands. It makes sense there was a lot of automation behind this. –  Qix May 14 at 19:17
    
@Qix Really all it's doing is not including those questions in the query to determine the size of the queue, that's all. Nothing beyond that really needs to be done. The idea is that the queue has had various prioritization criteria for deciding what question to feed someone. Questions nearer to being closed have priority, questions with newer close votes have priority, newer questions have priority, etc. They just broke up the queue into several stages, based on priority, High, medium, low, etc. They only show the count of the highest priority now, even though all items are in the queue. –  Servy May 14 at 19:18
    
I see, that makes more sense. –  Qix May 14 at 19:18
    
This actually has changed. Fuzzying is gone; it's now the actual number of items in the queue. So... will it ever get to zero? Hopefully, but I don't think so, based on the rate at which questions are asked on SO. –  hichris123 May 14 at 21:15
    
@hichris123 Thanks, I didn't see that it has been implemented after reading that proposal, thanks for bringing it up. –  Servy May 14 at 21:27

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