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I just failed this Low Quality Posts audit for clicking Edit. The answer contains actually useful information, but a spammy link at the end. I was going to edit out that last line, making it an acceptable answer. The failure text said:

This was an audit, designed to see if you were paying attention. You didn't pass. This post contains nothing of value. Fixing minor issues with formatting, spelling or grammar would be a poor use of your time, since it will be deleted anyway. You might be able to salvage it after extensive editing. Normally you should delete or recommend deletion when reviewing such posts.

The post really does answer the question, the user just didn't know how not to be a spammer. Therefore, I take issue with the bit about it containing "nothing of value." I would have been easily able to salvage it by cutting out the spam part.

I am also now banned from reviewing for failing a single other dubious audit a couple days ago.

Is this actually a good audit question? What should I have done?

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  • It's a good audit question. You should get into the habit of checking the question in another tab, best way, to see if the answer passes the "duplicate information" smell test
    – Ramhound
    Commented Jan 31, 2016 at 2:08
  • @LiveForever Ah, you're right, it was plagiarized, from this PC Advisor article.
    – Ben N
    Commented Jan 31, 2016 at 20:55

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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It's more or less the same information provided in the other answer to that question... Except without screenshots... And with that spam link.

It's the spam link that you should be worried about. It's become rather commonplace for folks wishing to advertise their sites to come here and drop links all over the place, sometimes along with real answers but often without. In some cases, these links are benign: an article that goes into more detail, or tangential information added to an already-complete answer hurts no one.

But unless you're the company that makes the product being asked about, there's no good reason to ever be advertising your support team in an otherwise-unrelated answer.

I'm sympathetic to your situation, since you at least did try to edit out the link. Quite honestly, that would've probably still been a waste of time - if this had been a live post, you'd have just enabled a spammer to continue spamming elsewhere. But in recognition of the fact that you were trying to give someone the benefit of the doubt, I've reduced your review suspension to 1 day.

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