Inconsistent meaning of Yes/No actions in the review queue

I love the new unified review queue but I noticed a slightly confusing UX pattern when processing a lot of items in a row.

You might review several flagged posts that ask “Is this post spam?” where clicking Yes means taking action against the post (with a confirmation). Then the next item asks “Approve this topic?” where clicking Yes does the opposite (without confirmation).

When you’re scrolling through the queue quickly, it’s easy to build up muscle memory and accidentally click Yes and approve a topic when you actually meant “Yes, this is spam.”

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Thanks for the feedback, I can see how that could happen… do you think it would make sense to flip things around so we’re more consistently asking to confirm a problem?

We already ask: Is this post [spam, inappropriate, etc]?

And to flip around the “approve this topic?” situation… I guess we would instead ask “Is there anything wrong with this topic?” then yes would consistently be “yes something’s wrong” right?

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Thanks for your response!

Definitely. I’m not sure what the best copy would be, but flipping the language so Yes always means “take action against this post” feels like the best approach.

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Yes, please! And while we’re on it, there may be related opportunities to make the review system feel more consistent and approachable.

We have two basic types of review items:

  • “Post flagged as _______” and
  • “Queued post Needs Approval”

And the resolutions Approved and Rejected have opposite meanings for each class:

  • Issue confirmed with a flagged post? → “Approved.”
  • Issue confirmed with a queued post? → “Rejected.”

The colored resolution pills are clearly labeled, which is nice:
Green "Flag approved" pill,
Red "Post rejected" pill
…etc. But these are located fairly far from the “Timeline & notes” area. When scrolling items and scanning notes, my brain wants to think in the context of posts and what’s done with them, but instead I have to think about what Approved or Rejected means in context of the review item type:

note meaning - if flag item meaning - if queued post item
“Approved by” Flag approved
(problem confirmed) :prohibited:
Post approved
(no problem confirmed) :white_check_mark:
“Rejected by” Flag rejected
(no problem confirmed) :white_check_mark:
Post rejected
(problem confirmed) :prohibited:

And a little thing, in the filter drop-down:

  • Approved and Rejected just find Flag approved and Flag rejected items.
  • only All reviewed or Everything will find Post approved and Post rejected items.

None of this makes the system unworkable – it’s just a bit of mental overhead that, IMHO, contributes to the review queue system being a little confusing and intimidating at first.

Maybe this should be a separate post: “Inconsistent meaning of resolutions in the review queue” – but the matters seem pretty closely tied.

I found the review queue a little confusing at first but quickly learned to look at my choice twice to make sure I was doing what I intended.

that caught me out once at first but I meant to delete the post and instead approved it so I went directly to the topic list, found the topic and manually deleted the post. Then I went back into the queue and explained my actions in case anybody (staff) was wondering wtf

anyhow, providing just the confirmation would help

I tend to just figure out how things work and except it and one of the things that blows me away about Discourse is how it is constantly being refined especially the UX

Bravo team :+1:

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