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Arnold Neumaier pointed out, in this question from some months ago, that there is no "Improve" button for tag wiki edits that show up in the Suggested Edits review queue.

This affects users between 5k and 20k rep (as they can approve tag wiki edits but must have their own edits peer reviewed), so not everyone will see this. This population is about 30 users: admittedly not that many, but then only ~ eight other users can currently review edits (mods or >20k).

As Shog9 pointed out in his reply to Arnold, the alternative would be a cascade of edits to the tag wiki that would then need to be approved by someone else, and I understand this. However, this leaves a huge gap in the review process: what should I do if I see an edit I partly agree with but would like to improve? In the past I've approved them and tried to submit a new edit, but the system locks the tag wikis until a second reviewer approves the pending edit: I get

enter image description here

and clicking on edit pending sends me to the history page of my review of the edit,

enter image description here

The only option, then, is to sit around and wait until someone else comes along and clears the edit. This is impractical because the tag wiki Suggested Edits queue is very slow. It is much slower than the corresponding post queue because ~100 users can access that. While I can see this is probably not an issue in SO, I imagine most of the smaller sites are in similar situations.

This has not usually been much of a problem, either, but the tag wiki editing activity recently increased by quite a bit. While I commend Dimension10's efforts to get me and a few others a Reviewer badge, this level of activity is not necessarily sustainable with the current tools this site has available. This is an issue because few people can review tag wiki edits and fewer of them actually do. Further, each reviewer can only do 20 posts per day, and I've already maxed out on that a couple of times. If you propose a tag wiki edit that takes ages to go through, that may be one possible reason.

I would therefore ask two things. On the site design front, is there a way to have multiple edits to the same tag wiki in the review queue? This would ideally be available as an "Improve" button directly on the tag edit (though possibly with text warning to make sparse use of it because of the reviewing limitations). Future reviewers might be presented all the reviews to the same tag wiki, either simultaneously or one after the other, to make reviewing simpler. A cap on the maximum number of pending edits would also be reasonable, as would making this feature site-specific so it gets turned off after the tag wiki review queue speeds up.

On the community side, on the other hand, if you have more than 5k rep, please review all the Suggested Edits you can. This keeps that specific queue faster and allows a faster community dialog about what we want our tag wikis to be.

I am happy to take the to the Mother Meta, but as this is mostly a local issue I thought I'd ask here and get some local support before I go there.

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  • $\begingroup$ Actually 20k users do see an "improve" button, but that is because they have the ability to make tagwiki edits without needing review. $\endgroup$
    – Manishearth
    Sep 4, 2013 at 12:55
  • $\begingroup$ Yup, I really wonder why the suggested tag wiki edit queue is sooooooo slow... $\endgroup$
    – Abhimanyu Pallavi Sudhir
    Sep 4, 2013 at 13:00
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    $\begingroup$ I've been staying out of the queues a bit, partially because I'm very busy these days, and partially because I/we want to encourage community reviews more. However, if any of you feel that the queues are getting clogged, just ping me in chat. I'll try to clean up the tag wiki queue now :) $\endgroup$
    – Manishearth
    Sep 4, 2013 at 13:02
  • $\begingroup$ How big is the queue, by the way ? $\endgroup$
    – Abhimanyu Pallavi Sudhir
    Sep 4, 2013 at 13:05
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    $\begingroup$ @DImension10AbhimanyuPS Currently it has 8 edits. But it frequently goes above 20 with your tag wiki edits. $\endgroup$
    – Emilio Pisanty
    Sep 4, 2013 at 13:11
  • $\begingroup$ @Manishearth I appreciate that you do. I remember this coming up in meta and I think this is a good thing. But maybe the specific tag wiki review queue is not ready to fly on its own just yet. $\endgroup$
    – Emilio Pisanty
    Sep 4, 2013 at 13:15
  • $\begingroup$ @EmilioPisanty Me too :) Re:specific: Yeah, except that it's munged with the suggested edit queue (which does seem to clear out pretty easily), so I usually ignore it. It was a bit high today but I didn't pay much attention to that because I thought that that was the result of a spree. The close vote queue isn't completely "ready" either, it sometimes goes above 30 and then I jump in. $\endgroup$
    – Manishearth
    Sep 4, 2013 at 13:20
  • $\begingroup$ @Manishearth Hmmm. Do you as a mod have the ability to peer into the review queue and see what's in there without having to trawl through the whole thing? $\endgroup$
    – Emilio Pisanty
    Sep 4, 2013 at 13:22
  • $\begingroup$ @EmilioPisanty Unfortunately, no. However, in the close vote queue, I can (and I think you can too) skip posts and come back to them later -- there's a "show my reviews including skipped" checkbox under the queue history. Besides that, I (and other 10k users) can see the queue history, so I can see what posts are currently being reviewed. But not the whole queue, no. $\endgroup$
    – Manishearth
    Sep 4, 2013 at 13:27
  • $\begingroup$ Also, the queue is now down to 3. Enjoy! $\endgroup$
    – Manishearth
    Sep 4, 2013 at 13:28
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    $\begingroup$ Regarding the mother meta, you could have split this post into two and kept the feature req there (and cross linked them). But never mind, this works too (it's OK to ask a broader feature request on a child meta). $\endgroup$
    – Manishearth
    Sep 4, 2013 at 13:30
  • $\begingroup$ @Manishearth I can't actually see the "show my reviews including skipped" checkbox. Where exactly do you see it? $\endgroup$
    – Emilio Pisanty
    Sep 4, 2013 at 13:40
  • $\begingroup$ @EmilioPisanty Turns out its 10k only: meta.stackexchange.com/a/184309/178438 $\endgroup$
    – Manishearth
    Sep 4, 2013 at 13:46
  • $\begingroup$ @EmilioPisanty very soon you'll get an additional reminder in the top-bar that there are pending edits, but that won't go away even after hitting the limit $\endgroup$
    – user10851
    Sep 5, 2013 at 23:35
  • $\begingroup$ @ChrisWhite hmmm. Well, it doesn't happen all that often, anyway. $\endgroup$
    – Emilio Pisanty
    Sep 5, 2013 at 23:39

1 Answer 1

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In the past I've approved them and tried to submit a new edit, but the system locks the tag wikis until a second reviewer approves the pending edit.

Ouch, I didn't know that the system did that. I've had similar experiences when I (as a non mod) approve an edit and then realize that I want to improve it too.

With the current system, that's pretty much the best you can do. I agree that this can be improved; but in the meantime it's OK to bug me (or anyone else who doesn't mind) in chat to fast-track a single review because you want to make more changes.

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