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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.

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    I think I'm more with you on the above examples. Deleting should be use for things that add nothing (non-answers and harmful content). Posts that could help should be left. I don't understand why you can't vote from the review screen. Seems a bit odd.
    – Oli Mod
    Mar 26, 2014 at 15:02
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    @Oli none of those could help actually. You converted the 1st to a comment yourself, the second is completely irrelevant and the 3d was very low quality and wrong as written. Deletion is harsh though, agreed, there should be a third option.
    – terdon
    Mar 26, 2014 at 18:11
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    2) is not just wrong but misleading. He says that he needs to allow write permission but instead give a command to remove it.... what gives?
    – Braiam
    Mar 27, 2014 at 1:07
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    I'm closing this as a duplicate of “Review Low Quality Posts” does not let you say that posts can be improved. "Looks Good" was since renamed to "Looks OK" to better reflect the actual function of that review queue. I'm mainly commenting to disclose a possible conflict of interest as the top answer here disagrees with my answer there. But the top answer here is wrong and outdated--the system was changed to ensure nobody would take that interpretation!--and this was really always a duplicate anyway. Dec 6, 2017 at 14:01

1 Answer 1

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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).

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  • Fine enough... However, regarding sudo shutdown -P now, I often use that command myself, don't remember ever getting that error message which says -H and -P flags can only be used along with -h flag. I even ran the command now to test it, didn't get that error!
    – Aditya
    Mar 26, 2014 at 20:58
  • @Aditya what do you get for type shutdown?
    – terdon
    Mar 26, 2014 at 20:59
  • type shutdown says shutdown is /sbin/shutdown.
    – Aditya
    Mar 26, 2014 at 21:00
  • @Aditya you're right, Ubuntu must have changed it. I just tried on my Ubuntu VM and it did indeed work. I got the message on my Debian.
    – terdon
    Mar 26, 2014 at 21:01
  • @Aditya anyway, that was the one that I considered salvageable, and edited.
    – terdon
    Mar 26, 2014 at 21:02
  • just landed here in passing - the part saying "I would exit the queue and flag as NAA" seems confusing? Posts flagged as NAA go to the queue and if we agree they are NAA we click Delete, I thought. Have I misunderstood something?
    – Zanna Mod
    May 27, 2017 at 13:12
  • @Zanna NAA flags are also shown to mods. In any case, this question was about the LQ queue, so I guess I was thinking (it's been a few years now) that flagging it as NAA to get the mods involved was better. I don't really remember, to tell you the truth.
    – terdon
    May 29, 2017 at 12:50

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