I was going through the Reports queue yesterday, trying to clean up some lineups and such, and noticed many that are probably never going to be closed. There just isn't any proof of the reporter's claim. Check out this one, for example. So we're just supposed to... recognize the guy from a video or photo and add him to the lineup? Never gonna happen. I ran across several reports like this. Many have been opened for 4-5 months now.

I could assign them back to the original reporter and at least get them out of the Unassigned queue, but that seems to make things worse. There are reports in the Assigned queue that have been there for over a year.

So how about we just kill reports that remain unresolved after some period of time? Say 6 months or even 1 year. If it's not something that can be fixed, sort of declare it an unresolvable/vague complaint and nix it. You can even remove the point given to the original reporter in order to discourage him/her from just opening it again. I bet the reports queue would be cut it half.

I wouldn't suggest closing reports automatically because we weren't able to provide a response, that seems a little unfair on the user. If we believe that they haven't provided sufficient proof to perform the modifications, I would suggest requesting the information required and their attention, and if they don't answer within a few weeks (at most), we can close the report and ask them to resubmit with the answers. Whether they will resubmit or not, we don't know, but either way the report will be out of the queue. A lot of old reports are valid though, in which case that's not the reporter's problem... usually they're just a pain to fix in terms of editing/researching, or none of us have fully decided on how to resolve it. However, reports without reliable sources are a different matter, and there it shouldn't be our problem if the reporter didn't bother to provide it.


Sometimes people assign themselves and later forget about it, although it's very rare that anyone actively checks the queue. I actually had this exact discussion a few months ago. Recently I reverted some of the reports back to unassigned, and closed a few.


Points are not awarded to the user until the report is closed by a knight or moderator, so we can't ''remove'' them. I personally never award points upon closing a report without sufficient proof... although to be honest, I don't think the majority of reporters pay attention there. The only difference is that when we award points, there's a ''thank you'' at the end of the report, nothing explicitly says ''you've earned 1 point for your report''.

If no answer is forthcoming, especially regarding visitor reports, i simply close and leave the original user a reminder to flag another report with more info. If it is something that seems especially worthy of research, take assignment so it isnt lost. Letting reports sit tends to lead to snowballing, then it becomes daunting to tackle the queue at all. People are content to chip away at the recent stuff and the rest gets compacted and rots, in a sense.

Taking assignment for a report is a good idea if you plan to spend time researching, but sadly, often people don't stick to it and as a result it often leads to the reports getting forgotten about for even longer - hardly anyone actively checks that queue. I sometimes look at the oldest reports in the unassigned queue and I actually just closed its previously oldest one a few moments ago. Reports with zero or near-zero proof are not the problem - when a report is completely empty of proof, it generally gets closed quite quickly with a note to resubmit.

Having looked at other old reports, I find the problem tends not to be invalid reports, but mostly ones in need of change and clearly stating incorrect data, but involving tedious and gruelling amounts of research, which understandably no one wants the pain of dealing with. Here's a few examples:

• This report is a great example of how we have to deal with a huge amount of information... it's daunting, far from enjoyable and moderators are already busy with a lot of work elsewhere.
  
• This report comes with a large amount of uncertainty and not an 100% trustworthy source... although we were provided with likely outcomes, definite confirmation (or even undefinite) is almost certainly either very hard or impossible to find, thus it's not surprising that despite being filed in June, no one has attempted to answer.
  
• This report by aloof is a little more recent - contradictory info on labels and albums is clearly shown and stated. We clearly have incorrect info on our pages, and I'm not sure if the correct info can be found anywhere... although if not, then what are we supposed to do? I admit I have no clue how to resolve such reports, so I end up ignoring them and leaving for somebody else... and I am certain many other users (and even mods) do the same. If you really are not confident with how to resolve/close a report, then the obvious answer is not to.

Killing a report with no action nor explanation seems a bit unfair nor does it resolve our initially reported incorrect data... sadly I can't think of any other solution around this, except for us to simply ''work harder''... maybe somebody else has better ideas? The examples shown above demonstrate how gruelling dealing with reports can be at times, and it's unsurprising why in many cases no one wants to take assignment. If it was always an easy task, we wouldn't have over 1,000 in the queue.

Queue was inching in on 2500 when i first started doing site work, so it isnt untenable. I cant check your examples in detail but your synopsi dont shock me or anything. Ill deal with it, barring extreme misfortune, although sadly ive eaten crow more than a few times this summer saying the same thing...

To be honest I probably could do better... some reports require knowledge of general site policies of which I have no idea about, so I can't really do much. I've just returned here after years of absence, and I don't think it's helped much... I've forgotten a lot. As for the heavy research, it's just a huge pain... I have done a few times, but can't say it's enjoyable.

That all said, of course it's not unmanageable, and actually you proved that yourself a few months ago! However, I have seen how tedious it can get.