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We've been working on repairing our broken windows for a few weeks now. We've had three rounds of community review (results are posted on each week's post). We're seeing some good participation from the community -- editing, discussing, and voting.

With that experience, before we continue we'd like to ask you, the repair crew, how it's going. Is our process working? Are we posting a reasonable number of questions for review in each batch? Are we allowing enough time? Should we be selecting candidates differently? Do you feel that your feedback is being heard and that we're (all) resolving disagreements appropriately? Is there anything you'd like us to change in how we do this?

We won't be posting a new review list this week, so please take that time to give us feedback on the process instead. Thanks for your help.

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    consider more active backlinking to meta from main site. Questions that enter the review list would better get mod comment referring to meta discussion, in bold font to denote mod hat on. Like "discussed at meta: <link>" (example where this wasn't done). Probably same to be done for answers that pop up in respective review posts
    – gnat
    Sep 17, 2014 at 8:01

2 Answers 2

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I feel like I can say as a new visitor/member of the site, it doesn't feel particularly clear what the "community" is looking for...

There seem to be a lot of somewhat interesting or valid-ish questions that are On Hold... get negative votes right away without a particular amount of help to get the question on the right track.

I asked my question and it was immediately downvoted. There was a comment by a high rep member saying it wasn't about navigating the workplace when then intent of my question was to get a document available for new employees on how to navigate my particular workplace... That may seem meta, but on topic.

I understand the need for a new site to keep the questions clear to set an example for questions in the future, but I think Workplace would be a lot more welcoming by first trying to fix the questions or leave comments without the downvotes and Hold requests at least until the person has a chance to respond. Particularly people with 101 rep coming in who are members of other Stack Exchange communities that know how the system works.

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    putting a question on hold is precisely what you're requesting: a chance to fix a question and get it right for the site. If you're sure your question belongs, then edit and comment until everyone can see clearly that it belongs. Don't just leave it as-is because some people disagreed with it as first written
    – Kate Gregory
    Sep 17, 2014 at 19:17
  • meta.stackexchange.com/a/196078/165773
    – gnat
    Sep 17, 2014 at 20:19
  • @KateGregory - i altered it before i wrote this.
    – Jeff Martin
    Sep 18, 2014 at 14:48
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    i less mind the item being on hold than negative votes without reason why. Negative votes are inherently negative and give a negative experience. As a startup community i think there should be a greater focus on the positive and encouragement. I've also noticed that there hasn't been activity on my question since the edit. New questions get attention (neg or positive) It seems unlikely based on experience with other sites that I will see the negative votes removed or changed in to positive votes.
    – Jeff Martin
    Sep 18, 2014 at 14:50
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    'downvotes are taken so damn personal. A downvote does not mean "you are a bad person and you should feel bad, go die in a corner". But that's how they're often understood...' (MSO)
    – gnat
    Sep 18, 2014 at 16:38
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    i agree @gnat and thats why i think a new community should be careful about using them too liberally. I'm a big boy and I understand what they are from other stack exchange communities, but fixing a question so rarely gets people to go back and remove downvotes once the question is fixed, i think the community leaders/moderators should use them liberally and be more interested in developing good content for their sites rather than just pointing to bad content.
    – Jeff Martin
    Sep 18, 2014 at 16:53
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    well, rarely getting back to remove downvotes may happen at other Stack Exchange sites, but this is rather opposite to what I observe at Workplace. Here, people seem to be generally happy to revoke DVs when questions are brought into shape, and in cases when I can see some "obsolete" downvotes through vote split, these are typically offset by upvotes cast on improved question (it certainly helps that we're getting modest dozen questions a day, so that edited ones get conveniently bumped to front page and stay there for long enough for community to review improvements)
    – gnat
    Sep 18, 2014 at 17:02
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    This article might be interesting for you to read. Writing good subjective questions is hard. Even your revised question doesn't really fit the list of criteria in that blog very well. Your original question (and even after your revision) is basically "hey give me a list" which has never been a good fit for Stack Exchange Q/A sites. After you edited your question, three of four people voted to keep it closed in the review queue.
    – enderland
    Sep 18, 2014 at 23:03
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    (cont) Also, see this link for some specific "don't ask" subjects, one of them is your answer is provided along with the question, and you expect more answers: “I use ______ for ______, what do you use?” which is nearly exactly what your question is. Please also look through the scope here as the scope of this site is not just "does it relate to work? on topic!" I hope this helps some, as like I said above, it's really hard to write good subjective questions for a Q/A site.
    – enderland
    Sep 18, 2014 at 23:04
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    Its too bad i didn't get that feedback in the comments of the question.
    – Jeff Martin
    Sep 19, 2014 at 20:23
  • @JeffMartin - I would consider trying to ask how you can determine the right items to include in a reference guide for someone new to a position in your group. Keep it as position neutral as possible as really the process of determining the contents should be the same reguardless if the position is for a developer or an artist or a banker. The difference will be what is in the contents. I think this style question would be great.
    – IDrinkandIKnowThings
    Sep 29, 2014 at 18:13
  • Part of the problem is what goes into the document for you workplace is going to be very different from what goes in my workplace. But the process of determining how to put those documents together will be basically the same (or could be anyway).
    – IDrinkandIKnowThings
    Sep 29, 2014 at 18:14
  • I'm not sure i agree that the process would be the same as an artist or banker, but I take your meaning and understand how you would like me to change the orientation of the question. I'll try to put some time in to that question again sometime soon.
    – Jeff Martin
    Sep 29, 2014 at 18:18
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(expanding point made in prior comments)

I recommend that posts indicated as troublesome in review (questions and answers) were commented with the references to respective meta posts. Preferably by moderator, to better indicate that there is a community effort going on, not a personal initiative.

As of now, meta effect activities going on such posts, voting, edits, deletions sometimes look like coming out of thin air. This doesn't feel healthy.

I expect "back-linking" to meta to help visitors and contributors better learn how site is run and moderated and understand that they can participate too:

most powerful moderation tool is given at really modest rep 5: participate in meta...

Another note is more of a personal wish because I can't tell if other reviewers feel the same.

I would appreciate if questions picked for review round all had the same close reason (or maybe two reasons if one can't make a sensible list). Or if these were at least grouped by close reasons.

Looking back on how it went in prior rounds, I realise that it often happened that everything I learned reviewing some question has to be flushed properly and pretty thoroughly after I was done with it, because next question had totally different kind issues and troublesome answers in it respectively reflected that.

I think I could review more productively if I could do it on a group of questions having similar issues (which seems to be typical case with questions having same close reason).

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    That's a good point, thanks. I'm sorry we haven't been careful with this.
    – Monica Cellio
    Sep 18, 2014 at 13:08
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    I did this on one question where I really thought it could be improved -- just not by me as I didn't have the context -- but I think other users in the community can leave these comments too, especially on the posts where they have an interest or feel strongly it can be improved. With that said, I'll keep doing that on posts where I think it has value.
    – jmort253
    Sep 19, 2014 at 3:22
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    Different close reasons require slightly different skill sets to improve them. Some also require working with the askers directly, while others just require a creative editor. I like the idea of grouping posts by close reason.
    – jmort253
    Sep 20, 2014 at 3:20

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