Ahem, this is going to be a rough one, so it's gonna be a long one too ala Pascal's famous quote. First, some context; we have
How to deal with robo-reviewers?
Should we have a Grace period to avoid premature Voting to Close and Reopening Cycle
(and more)
This thing is bothering me for some time already, especially after the migration of many users who do more or less exclusively reviewing on the site but not much of actual content contribution. Not that I am dismissing or underestimating the effort that goes in but there is a fine line between having a lust-driven relationship with review buttons and actually reviewing the questions properly (which means once in a while clicking that $%$%^#& Skip button if you don't have any idea about the subject).
Fun fact; I have tried a few identification experiments such that I found a recently closed question and then voted for reopening (i've chosen closed-with-valid-reasoning ones to maximize the effect) and some users who actually voted for closing also voted for reopening. Now no need for calling names for this but, if you excuse my French, this is bullock-cart-pulling-bullshit (emphasis is mine).
Now, I don't know why you hang out here but I like being borderline useful while learning a lot. Also, as a recent-beginner of Python and Linux, I really feel the pain of some of the users that ask quick questions with haste because sometimes you really don't know what else to do and having copy/pasted every damn solution on SO or any other place, it quickly becomes a mess. Last thing you need is to put n-propeller-powered-jetillion nuances/rituals about what the site rules are or whatever the forum owners' girlfriend implemented somewhere. With a little bit of effort and gentle nudges, most new users give in without any sour feeling and make a MWE, it takes time and patience and we have a lot of it in here. Or had. Now all I see is dictating comments on how things operate here and if you don't obey my warning, I'll call my mod brother and he'll whoop yo ass. attitude.
Hang on; another thing needs to be out-of-the-way; There are these things called Stackexchange network rules, nobody knows who come up with them and why but in their own environement they make sense (I hope). And through some law-abiding-never-law-questioning citizens of that network we are introduced to these things.
For a recent one that claims that I'm not informed well about a site that I'm not even registered see Consensus vs accepted answers on meta
However, if this means that powers that be actually dictate what we are doing here then, first, it goes against the notion of community-driven Q&A site, second, I am out of this place, in the first instance (which has no impact of course but I'm out anyway). It bears no threat value just my opinion. The reason is that I didn't sign up for this, and truly I don't care what owner of SE network thinks about TeX-SX. All I know is that, there are users who really dedicate their time and patience to come up with the wittiest solutions that we all see and also there are these review-people who click on the buttons like crazy in the name of some obscure nonsense that is maybe applicable to a humongous site that is called Stackoverflow that bares no resemblance to this site, I mean, in any possible statistical aspect.
My argument goes like this;
- Our number of question intake is not changing dramatically, so we were OK with not closing every question in 2 hours --> We will be OK without closing them in 2 hours
- Our number of active users is amazing including those review-junkees, even spams don't last longer than a few 5-minutes --> No need to fear about the unanswered/asked ratio, we are doing pretty good without closing them like crazy.
- New users were getting confused already with stock comments --> Now they are more pissed off in average (based on my observation so no facts here) But this question Why is \rotate useless in deluxetable? believe it or not closed twice! Not once. We reopened it David wrote an answer and we closed it again. (The OP mentioned closing already but no we have to be faster, modern world doesn't wait, so in your face noobie, don't come back again)
- The close voters don't read the comments or any discussion going on under the question or answers. To be honest they don't read at all as far as I understand.
- This sucks.
These close-voting-users however become the unofficial saint-of-the-noobs when they vote for suggested edits. Suddenly every edit ranging from very good ones to oh-it-was-my-screen-having-dust-not-an-actual-comma type of microscopic edits. All pass with flying colors.
Closing remark
If you are so eager to contribute, answer dem questions properly.
In the spirit of one of the pillars of TeX-SX : Vote early and often!, Review Late and Rarely!
So, after all this tasteless rant, here is my actual problem; I'm tired of keeping track of wrongly closed questions or questions with threatening comments under them. I don't know any other way than actually pointing fingers to users which would cause even more bitter taste so question is how can we (assuming that I'm not the only one feeling this strange transition) reach out to these users without creating a primary school level snitching-to-mod game?
I really want to get the attention of those frequent-voting users because I think we can arrive to a better understanding (though it seems difficult if they are high on badges and euphoric on their name up on the The Most Awesome Reviewer list).
Afteredit on an important detail The reason why I seem to have a tone that targets individuals is because I don't expect the powers-that-be to unimplement this review system anytime soon. So the only way to change this situation is through reviewer behavior. Had this system not in place, they wouldn't be able to vote this quickly and erroneously. Hence while it is true that I speak mostly about reviewers, the target is indirectly and essentially these buttons that amplify and encourage careless reviewing behavior.