Here are some guidelines and best practices for reviewers in the Staging Ground:
If you know what a good question looks like, you can review anything
You don’t have to be a subject matter expert on the question in order to review it. If it looks like it has the elements of a good question, trust your gut and go with it, even if you are not an expert on the subject being discussed.
Perfect is the enemy of good
It is fine to approve a good question for publication even if it is not perfect. A question that is reasonably formatted, generally understandable, on-topic, and appears to have all the information necessary to answer the question, is ready to be approved.
You don’t have to fix everything
Feel free to make edits to a post to help move it along, but don’t feel like you have to fix everything about it. If you prefer, you can leave guidance to a user for finishing touches (this is a good use of the Minor Edits state).
On-topic but poor quality = Major Changes
If the question is on-topic for the site but of poor quality, then Require Major Changes along with a comment identifying the issues is the proper choice.
Post-specific comments yield the best results
Comment templates are best used as starting points for your feedback. Comments that are personalized and specific to the post will have the greatest impact.
Prefer granular pieces of feedback to longer comments
If there are multiple issues to address, it is better to add one comment to address each issue instead of leaving one larger comment. Shorter points are easier to follow and respond to, especially via nested comments.
Give guidance, but don’t give the answer
Please resist the temptation to answer questions through comments or edits. If you know the answer and the question is ready, publishing it and answering the public question is the way to help expose the answer as widely as possible to help more folks in the future.
Provide supportive feedback; if it is ignored, just move on
The intention is that good questions can be quickly approved and new askers can receive constructive feedback, while avoiding negativity. If you see that your feedback isn’t being listened to, indicate this through the “Decline re-evaluation” action, and move on.