Am I reviewing the Low Quality Queue properly?

Question

I have been finding that my judgement about review items in Low Quality Queue contrasts drastically compared to fellow members of this site.

I find the posts to be "good"; whereas others "recommend to delete" more often. Do remember, that bad and incorrect answers should be voted-down, not deleted. Correct me if I am wrong about the "not deleted" part.

---

Below are some of the recent examples (providing the post contents in quote in case it does get deleted by the system in the interim):

• https://askubuntu.com/review/low-quality-posts/239759

  The answer provided was:

  Try doubleklicking speaker in sound settings. Had the same error as you do and this did the trick for me.

  It does attempt to answer the question about sound issues. I don't know if it would solve it, but as the answerer said, it worked for him. Maybe it won't work for anybody, but hey it works in some cases. Hence, my reasoning that it "Looks Good".

• https://askubuntu.com/review/low-quality-posts/237467

  The answer provided was:

  You must set permision for user for write.

  chmod -w /path_to_ftp_folder/ftp
  

  The question is about an issue with permissions and it answers to change permissions with a command. I don't know if it is correct, but it does attempt to answer the question. Hence, my reasoning that it "Looks Good".

• https://askubuntu.com/review/low-quality-posts/236989

  The answer provided was:

  You can use command line to shut down pc in normal way.

  sudo shutdown -P now
  

  The question says that the user isn't able to shutdown the PC normally. Shutting down only logs him out of the system. This answer provides a way to shutdown via terminal. Okay, it doesn't solve the issue. But atleast, it provides an interim solution until the problem gets actually solved. Hence, my reasoning that it "Looks Good".

---

I can definitely provide a lot of more examples, but haven't really dug so deep into my review history. What is the opinion of the community? Am I reviewing this queue correctly, or my reasoning doesn't seem good and I shouldn't click "Looks Good" this often? Or, the community isn't reviewing the posts properly? I know the system automatically flags a lot of posts as Low quality.

Answer 1

I agree with you that deletion should not be used lightly, that should be reserved for the really really bad/dangerous answers or those that don't try to answer the question. However, in my opinion, you should not have clicked on "Looks Good" either in these cases. Specifically:

1. Try doubleklicking speaker in sound settings. Had the same error as you do and this did the trick for me.

   This is more of a comment than an answer. There is very very little information there. What sound settings? How do I find them? Answers should at least try and explain how to achieve the desired result. Note that Oli, a mod, simply turned that answer into a comment to the OP.

2. The question asked was about errors on an FTP setup, the permissions for an FTP server have nothing to do with the permissions on the file system (not directly anyway), they depend on the way that the server has been set up and how the FTP users are defined and allowed to access. The answer would not help the OP fix the issue at all.

   In this case, you simply don't have the expertise to know whether this is a correct answer or not (which is fine of course, nobody knows everything). If you are not sure this is a good answer don't click on "Looks Good". Instead, skip the review. You should only click on "looks Good" if you know enough about the question to be able to evaluate the answer, otherwise, the post will be removed from the queue (I think it happens when 3 users or so click on "Looks Good"). Whenever you are not certain just skip the post.

3. The OP has issues shutting down from the GUI but the answer is again wrong. He recommended sudo shutdown -P now. This has several issues:

   1. The syntax is wrong, that command will just produce an error: Turns out it works on Ubuntu, my bad.

      $ sudo shutdown -P now
      shutdown: -H and -P flags can only be used along with -h flag.
      

   2. There is no explanation of what this is. The poster should have explained what the shutdown command does or at the very least explain what the -P flag is.

   Again, this is a very low quality answer.

Now, it is indeed a problem that the queue does not let us downvote or flag. We have to open them in a new window and downvote there. However, "Looks Good" implies that the posts are fine and all three of them have serious issues so that should be avoided. So since the only choices are "Delete" or "Looks good", personally I would have exited the queue and flagged the first as "Not an answer", and then clicked on "Skip". I would have voted to delete the 2nd since it is completely irrelevant and I would have tried to improve the 3rd to make it into a useful answer (which I just did).