Downvoting allowed in the review queue - can it be allowed on ServerFault

Question

I read this: Why is voting removed from new review system?

and saw Shog's answer.

I also read this: More effective closing / downvoting of junk questions to help with the signal-noise ratio?

Personally, I think it should be allowed. I am fine with reviewing close votes (having done so in the Review queue over 1k times, not even counting the vtc's on the main site). However, I often think it necessary to downvote them as well. Problem is...I have to click on the actual question link first and then downvote it in a new tab. That's crap, and causes me to simply not waste my time doing so. Yet, we as a community feel that voting is important. The site WANTS me to VOTE, but makes it cumbersome to do so on questions that obviously SHOULD be voted on one way or the other.

I see that SE has decided to remove this feature that was once present.

So my questions are:

1. Should SF's review queue have this functionality?
2. If YES, then is there a way to allow this functionality for ServerFault if the rest of SE doesn't want this feature?

Answer 1

Just to be contrary, I think voting on close posts is a good idea, and I do it (via tabs), and it's a pain in the proverbial, and I wish the review system didn't force me to do this. I think it's a good idea because voting feedback has a more immediate impact on the front page, and I think that's helpful, and in addition some review-task questions I think are appropriate for downvoting (showing, as they do, no research) but aren't appropriate for closure.

It makes it that much more work to properly process my 20 review tasks every day, which though I try to do I'm less likely to succeed in if it's that much more painful. So I'd like the voting buttons in the review interface, please.

Answer 2

Before I get into my opinion...

The idea behind not allowing voting in certain queues is to focus attention on the purpose of the queue (e.g. closing, reopening, editing or deleting). The First Posts and Late Answers queues are more open ended, and so they allow voting without leaving the page.

My personal opinion is that this is generally a good idea. While there's certainly plenty of crap in the close queue, the reason for the queue to begin with is to sort out what needs to be closed from what doesn't, or sometimes what can simply be improved enough to avoid needing to close it. Voting detracts from this.

Of course, as you know, you can always open the question in a new tab and vote on it anyway. But most of the time it really shouldn't be necessary to bother.

Answer 3

(I mostly do close and reopen reviews, so the following opinion is limited to those queues.)

To answer TheCleaner's question in a comment: closed questions that are at -1 (or less, but -1 is enough) will get auto-deleted quickly. So if a question you think should be closed isn't at -1, it's worthwhile to downvote it as well.

I never bother opening questions in another tab, but I regularly click on the question title while reviewing to get a better idea of the context - how many close votes there are, what the answers (if any) are like, and to see all the comments. At that point, if it deserves downvoting, I do it, then go back to the review screen and vote.

I can understand why people would like this, but although I'd benefit the most if this were implemented, I don't see any need for it. For questions that are clearly crap and already -ive, I don't need to downvote, and for the ones I do choose to downvote, it's not that hard to click on the title, the downvote arrow, go back and then review.

Answer 4

My opinion: What they should do is to scrap everything about this review system and replace it with a single queue (instead of 6) that displays the normal, full featured question view with just two additions in the form of a message over the relevant question or answer telling me why I am seeing this and what I should look out for and the relevant action buttons.

I am used to this view and it offers everything I need. With the current system, I go back and forth between the review tab and another one with the full view quite often and this slows me down so much that I quickly give up instead.

Oh, and while there are at it, naturally they should remove the review audit system and perma-ban everyone who ever mentions this again - the ex-feature that should not be named. However, they could reuse it as a qualification system for new SF users though - you are only allowed to post if you passed a test with 3 of 5 topic/off-topic quizzes.