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When you are reviewing posts, you are faced with three options: Skip, I'm done (after some change), Nothing to review.

Ideally, when you make a change like edit, flag, comment, or vote, the "I'm done" option becomes available, and you press it, eliminating the question from the review list. However, this system can be mis-used.

Basically, you can use the review mode as a window to all new questions and answers that might require edit. As such, it is a lucrative and efficient method to find and make unlimited edits, without need to actually mark the question as reviewed, and just select "Skip".

Yes, you are not able to review anymore after you have reached your daily limit of votes, but there is no need to vote at all.

Why do I think this is a misuse? In principle, you might think, well a lot of edits, that is good! But this comes at the cost of doubling the amount of review needed, as other users will inevitable go through it again.

My proposed solution is to make the skip option to really mean a skip (i.e. I will not intervene in the post). Alternatively, whenever you make a comment, flag it, edit it, or vote, eliminate the skip option.

TL;DR

Using the review mode you can edit unlimited questions, without need to select the "I'm done" option, but just select "Skip". This can be misused to go for reputation in an efficient and fast manner. "Skip" should be more rigorous.

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    First, you cant just do a million edits, there are other limitations , you can only have five pending edit reviews at a time, so you can't just keep editing and it can't be miss used for rep due to a 1k limit on edit rep total and a 2k cut off for any rep gain from editing. I don't see how it is exploitable with these limitations in place.
    – Mark Kirby
    Aug 13, 2016 at 12:35
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    I totally disagree. What if I want to fix obvious formatting problems (I don't get rep for editing) but still want to skip for some reason, for example I don't understand what a question is about but I suspect someone more familiar with the topic will, or I am not sure whether an answer is correct or not? The queues that users with <2k rep can review are rarely very full anyway. Even if people do use the review queues to find posts to edit, that is fine. There are only a handful of users with <2k who edit many posts afaik. This is a restrictive solution to a problem that, imho, doesn't exist.
    – Zanna Mod
    Aug 13, 2016 at 13:33

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I don't see a problem here. First of all, the "skip" option only removes the post from your review queue, not from everyone else's. If you skip a post, that won't make it magically disappear from my queue, only from yours.

In any case, the more common problem is precisely the opposite of what you describe. Since finishing a certain number of review tasks grants you badges (namely, Custodian, Reviewer and Steward), some people will make bad revisions or revise things in no need of revision just to get the badges. That's one of the reasons we have review audits.

In other words, quite frankly, I wish more people would "abuse" the system as you describe. That simply results in more edits and increases the overall quality of the site. If the editor in question chooses to then skip the review item in their queue, that's their choice and doesn't affect the rest of us in any way.

Finally, note that having a suggested edit approved i) only gives a measly 2 rep points and ii) only gives rep until you reach 2k reputation and can edit posts without requiring approval. After that, there is no bonus rep awarded for edits. So, your claim that this is a "lucrative" way of finding new posts to edit doesn't make much sense.

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    I am on board with wanting people to actually "abuse" the system. There are way too many edits waiting to be made.
    – edwinksl
    Aug 13, 2016 at 14:02

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