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I recently asked a question here on meta about what happens after using the "recommend deletion" option for an NAA / VLQ answer that I review - and I was kinda surprised that it takes six reviewers (who don't have the rep to cast delete votes) to recommend deletion, before the answer is deleted. As a fast-growing, subjective Q&A site that is currently in a state of flux and trying to normalize, I think this requirement should be changed -- until the site is more stable.

Some other ways to moderate NAA / VLQ answers is to flag it, or for users with enough rep - 4k, I think - to cast delete votes. But are these two approaches to moderating answers too reliant on diamond moderators (to review flags) and too reliant on the smaller subset of the community that have enough rep?

Would it be a good idea to lower the requirement of six reviewers (who can't cast delete votes) to maybe ... three reviewers to recommend deletion of an NAA / VLQ answer? At least for the short-term, say, six months to a year?

The idea is to moderate the answers as heavily as we moderate the comments - also, the community may not use downvoting enough for NAA / VLQ answers, especially if people are voting based on personal bias, instead of voting on the content.

Currently, comments that don't suggest improvements to a question or answer are removed pretty quickly - or if there's constructive dialogue to be had, the comments are moved to chat. Either way, the comments disappear from the main page. If we could remove NAA / VLQ answers just as fast - and almost just as easily - we could be closer to forming a stable community.

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This is a standard in SE. 3 delete votes from >4k users or 6 recommend-to-delete votes from <4k users will delete the answer if the answer has zero or less score.

From 13th point of this answer,

Posts with zero or negative score that receive six recommend deletion reviews (four on Stack Overflow) in the low-quality-posts review queue are automatically deleted "from review". Posts can be kicked into this queue either automatically or with very low quality and not an answer flags, and can be removed from the queue if enough Looks OK reviews are cast against them.

So, coming to your question,

Would it be a good idea to lower the requirement of six reviewers (who can't cast delete votes) to maybe ... three reviewers to recommend deletion of an NAA / VLQ answer?

No, it's not a good idea.

If Recommend Deletion votes are reduced to 3, then what will be the difference left between this and Delete votes from >4k users? None. If that happens, they will also have to reduce the number of Delete votes from >4k users. Maybe to 1. So, a single vote will delete a post? Wouldn't this create problems? Humans are prone to make mistakes and a mistake from a single user might delete some useful content. Or worse, it might be used for revenge etc. That's why reducing the number of votes is a bad idea.

This is a community where certain number of votes are required to perform an action, just like your votes that decide members of parliament. Moderators are human exception handlers. That's why their votes are binding and take place immediately.

We have currently 38 users >4k and 39 users between 2k and 4k. There are sufficient users to moderate answers. And there are active users who leave comments and downvote and delete bad posts. So, IMO, there is no need of this feature request.

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