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There seem to be automatically generated comments by "Community".

As an example, this question by a new user has

Please clarify your specific problem or provide additional details to highlight exactly what you need. As it's currently written, it's hard to tell exactly what you're asking.Community Bot

Just for completion, the question is

[A little background on Thompson groups] There is a concept of Higman-Thompson groups which are generalization of Thompson group. I would like to know the definition of Higman-Thompson groups. Thank you in advance!

My rough understanding is that such messages occur in some case involving new users, and poorly received questions (currently 1 downvote 1 closing vote 0 upvote). Is the algorithm to generate such comments known? Are such automatic comments useful in any way? Are they supervised by moderators?

[Indeed in the present case, this generic message is not really useful (I remember seeing other cases where it wasn't either). What OP asks is very clear, but somewhat open-ended (which is OK in some cases), and definitely shows no effort by OP (since OP asks for a definition that is available at many places). ]

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    $\begingroup$ As you can see, this specific question was in the first question review queue. If you try for yourself, you can see that this text is one of the options you can choose in that review: i.stack.imgur.com/bjNzd.png $\endgroup$ Mar 9, 2022 at 15:32
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    $\begingroup$ Related feature announcement: Review queue workflows - Final release. As per Martin's comment, the comments by the Community bot are not automatic, but they are just being delegated from the (human) reviewers: "Reviewers are encouraged to leave comments for the post-author, but now they can also choose from a few options of canned feedback which will appear as a comment from the Community account." $\endgroup$
    – Andrew T.
    Mar 12, 2022 at 19:38

1 Answer 1

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At least this part of the question has been basically answered in the comments:

Is the algorithm to generate such comments known?

Some of the comments explaining where these comments come from have been deleted in the meantime - but they can still be seen in the MathOverflow chatroom.

I.e., these comments are not actually "automatically generated" by the software - they are chosen by MathOverflow users who review the questions in these two review queues.


Short answer:

These comments come from the first questions and the first answers review queue. When reviewing in these queues, the user gets an option to leave a comment. It is possible to write your own comment or use one of the predefined options (canned feedback}. It is also possible to leave the comment signed by the Community user or post it as your own comment.

Here is a screenshot taken from the First questions review queue.

screenshot from the first questions review queue


More details can be found here:

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  • $\begingroup$ The answer is CW - feel free to edit it further if needed. (But I'll stress that this is intended to answer only the part about the functionality - i.e., how and when these comments are created by the software. Whether they are useful and how they can be changed is certainly for discussion - let's leave this to other answers, if some users are willing to share their thoughts on this.) $\endgroup$ Mar 19, 2022 at 6:28
  • $\begingroup$ Alternatively, if the OP decides to update the question and include the relevant information (explaining that these comments come from the review queues) - I won't object to deleting this answer if it is no longer needed. $\endgroup$ Mar 19, 2022 at 6:39
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for posting this answer. Certainly it's better include the answer in an answer (as you did) than in the question. $\endgroup$
    – YCor
    Mar 19, 2022 at 9:18

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