58

A particularly stark example here: https://stackoverflow.com/staging-ground/78609624

I and another user pointed out that the formatting is broken and that the question is currently unsuitable because there has been no real attempt at debugging. I even suggested the exact first place to look (on suspicion that the problem is really caused by a typo; if it isn't, then at least there's a chance of clarifying the conceptual issue - right now there is no real attempt to ask a question, just get someone else to do debugging work).

In response, the question was "edited" and submitted for re-evaluation... by adding or removing some whitespace at the ends of paragraphs. OP hasn't replied in the comments, either.

Is this considered an abuse of the system? Can or should we do anything beyond declining re-evaluation?

2
  • 5
    Related: some questions I had about this kind of abuse (and the built-in protections) back during the betas. Which had a response which more or less indicated that whether or not this was abusive was tbd. I feel I vaguely remember that they put in rate-limits to prevent users from requesting re-evaluations after being declined so many times, but I can't find the source of that at the moment.
    – Henry Ecker Mod
    Commented Jun 13 at 0:50
  • 20
    It seems I was remembering correctly: "If this repeats itself 3 times, then the author will receive a 12 hour re-eval suspension, during which they will not be able to resubmit for re-eval and will not be able to ask new questions (and will receive another email detailing this). Any subsequent “Declined re-eval” action (without an intervening change in question state) will renew the re-eval suspension."
    – Henry Ecker Mod
    Commented Jun 13 at 1:02

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
81

This is exactly what the "decline re-evaluation" review option was added for.

To elaborate more: we added this feature for this exact scenario, and it is designed to give the reviewer a frictionless way to tell the author that they still need to address the original feedback (IIRC, a banner tells them this). And if the author continues to ignore it, they will be temporarily blocked, with clear explanations why.

So just use it and move on.

A trickier scenario is where they have addressed some feedback, but still have missing pieces. In that case, I would not use decline re-evaluation - I would use a comment to thank them for changes and highlight what is still missing, and choose Major Changes again.

6
  • 7
    "And if the author continues to ignore it, they will be temporarily blocked" Temporarily blocked from what? Accessing Staging Ground? Asking questions? Submitting for re-evaluation?
    – TylerH
    Commented Jun 13 at 13:24
  • 11
    @TylerH IIRC editing the question further and asking questions. But cant check it in the code any longer XD
    – Yaakov Ellis
    Commented Jun 13 at 13:40
  • 12
    Shouldn't this expected usage be communicated by the UI somehow? I don't know about you, but re-choosing Major Changes again being different from decline evaluation is hugely surprising to me. The re-evaluation block is also completely opaque and I would definitely not hit that button as lightly given the possibility of a block.
    – Passer By
    Commented Jun 13 at 14:02
  • 6
    I think the phrase "decline re-evaluation" is not the right way to express this. I couldn't figure out what those words were supposed to mean (and I'm sure not understanding them now either). This part of the interface could use some serious re-writing; it is not at all clear to us what our options are or what they mean.
    – matt
    Commented Jun 13 at 20:53
  • 6
    I agree, @matt. I think part of the problem is parallelism: "major changes" is a noun phrase, but "decline re-evaluation" is an action. Both seem wrong for describing the status. "Major changes" seems like it's intended to be short for "major changes needed". The other one might instead be "requested changes are still missing".
    – Karl Knechtel
    Commented Jun 14 at 13:07
  • 2
    It might help if the text said explicitly, of each option, "If you submit this option, then such-and-such will happen."
    – matt
    Commented Jun 15 at 2:17

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .