Comments on Low Quality Posts

Question

When it comes to recommending deletion of a low quality post you are presented with a series of per-assigned comments you can leave against the post. Having carried out these reviews I have come across posts which already contain one of these per-assigned comments (or something similar).

Leaving no comment is an option, but I want to know the best course of action here. Does leaving a comment hold more weight/make it easier in the review process or is recommending deletion without commenting acceptable when a comment (which would match your own) already exists?

Answer 1

Yes, when someone else has already posted an applicable comment (either a canned one, or manually written), selecting the "no comment needed" option is totally appropriate. In fact, the review system detects and prevents duplicate canned comments.

On the other hand, if the existing comment is manually written, adding a canned comment can sometimes be helpful if it explains the problem in more detail or offers useful links (e.g. to the FAQ or some Meta post). When in doubt, I'd say err on the side of more information for the author of the post, rather than less.

If you want, you can also go and upvote the existing comment, to add more weight to it.