Guidelines for reviewing First Questions/ First Answers

Keep in mind that the user is new to your site, so they don't know all of the ins and outs of posting a question/ answer. It's critical that you offer accurate and helpful guidance.

Questions earn votes according to their value to future users as well as the asker, and according to their answerability. A question that just asks "How do I ..." without clarifying the circumstances, showing what the asker has tried, or explaining the issues they are seeing with their current effort is not a useful question. You may improve it or vote to close it. Answers earn votes according to their usefulness, accuracy, and completeness. For example, an answer that consists of merely a link is not useful at all.

The basic workflow is simple: if the post deserves an edit (only), select Edit. If the author could benefit from some feedback, select Share feedback. If the post deserves any other action or combination of actions (voting, flagging, editing, commenting, etc.), perform the action(s), and select Other action. If the post doesn't need any action at all, click Looks OK. Finally, if you're not sure what to do with the post, please Skip it. One review from a user is enough to dismiss the task. See below for when you should take action:

Common reasons to Flag/Close/Delete

For all posts

• If the post is spam, flag as "spam". If it is offensive, flag as "rude or abusive". More information can be found in What are the “spam” and “rude or abusive” (offensive) flags, and how do they work?

For questions

• Check that the main part of the question is in the post itself and not hosted off-site (JSFiddle, the asker's broken production site, an article, etc.). The question should be written so that it makes sense even if the links break or change.
• Does the question have all necessary information in a clear and focused manner necessary to provide an authoritative answer, and is it within the scope of your site?
  • Ask for the missing information to narrow the scope of the question, or reword the question so it fits the site scope.
• Does the question seem like a question you have seen before?
  • Check the comments; others sometimes post duplicates
  • Go to the duplicate area in the flagging UI. See if there are any questions that are similar
• Does the question show any sort of research value?
• If they provide links, evaluate whether you think the question is spam. Wording like "I found one solution at link but am looking for others" may be an attempt to promote link.

Flag/Close:

• Questions that have been already asked and answered before

• A question that is asking multiple distinct questions, or asking a question that cannot be answered succinctly

• A question that is not clear what it's asking about

• A question that is too subjective, such as:

  • "Why does Technology A not do B?"
  • "What is the best C for my situation?"
  • "When will D be updated and what will be new?"

• A question that does not fit within the site's scope as defined in its help center

For answers

• Is the post a link-only answer?
• Check the link if they provide one.
• Is the person asking a new question?
• Is the poster actually making an attempt to answer the question?

Flag/Delete:

• Link-only answers
• Not relating to the question
• Someone sending a "thanks" to another user
• The original user posting the answer as the exact copy of someone else's answer¹

Don't focus on the actual answer itself. Focus on the formatting and the etiquette of the author.

Common reasons to edit

After determining that the post is one that will be useful to the community, take care of:

1. Remove spurious greetings, declarations of urgency, assurances of having searched and tried stuff (especially if that stuff is nowhere to be seen in the question), promises to appreciate help, requests for links to tutorials for one who is just getting started and the like.
2. Not enough paragraph breaks, or too many
3. Identify an actual question, usually at the beginning or the end of the question. If it must be in the middle, consider highlighting it in some fashion.
4. Lacking of appropriated formatting, like not formatted as code, whether inline or in blocks or quotations not properly identified as such
5. Attempts at bulleted or numbered lists that don't use Markdown
6. Raw links or "click here" or "this" links - the display text should be descriptive, like The MSDN Documentation or A Tutorial on Exceptions. Hover or follow the links to rule out spam.
7. Pictures or code hosted offsite - open them in a new tab. If they're appropriate, bring them into the question. For code, you may need to know the language or technology to know what to bring in. If you don't know it, you can leave a comment instructing the author to make that edit.
8. Spelling, grammar, and punctuation, as well as spacing oddities like space before comma
9. Organization: many first timers have 3-4 paragraphs of talk, then all the code. Organize things correctly to increase readability and understanding of the question
10. A title which actually describes the question
11. Remove any sort of rudeness; make the post courteous and helpful.

After fixing all of that, if there is still more missing (for example what operating system is being used), then add a comment requesting the details be edited into the question. A comment to a new user that only asks a question will typically be answered in comments. Explain our normal procedures to them.

Common reasons to upvote

Some reviewers upvote first posts in the review queue that have nothing wrong with them, even if they would not upvote that same post if they just came across it while using the site. The usual explanation is that they want to encourage the newcomers and make them feel welcome. This is a valid reason for an upvote; if you feel that way, upvote the post before submitting the review.

Common reasons to downvote

The best thing to do with bad posts in the First Posts review queue is to improve them. The next best thing to do is to close them so they won't accumulate answers until they are improved (for questions), or flag them for deletion (for answers). Downvoting may give a signal to a new user that they aren't welcome here; you might consider leaving a comment pointing them to tips on how to fix their post (or by selecting the Share feedback review option). If you want to downvote a first post, ask yourself if it wouldn't be better to close it, flag it, or fix it instead.

¹ On sites with review audits, sometimes the system uses prior highly-voted answers to check to see if users are paying attention and reviewing those positively. These audits appear with fake vote scores and authorship, so if you recognize having seen the answer in the past, you may believe that it's an exact repost of that prior answer, but flagging it as such will fail the audit. If you encounter such a post, click the "link" to the answer to check if it's actually a repost; if you're directed to the previous highly-voted answer rather than a new one, it's an audit, not a repost.