Header shows items in review queue, but it's empty

Question

On the main page, I have currently 16 items in the review queue according to the header, but when I click it, all the review queues are empty.

Are these skipped reviews or where does this number come from?

Answer 1

We already discussed that in chat a few days ago. While having no definite answer, our "guessed conclusions" are:

• it's the number of overall items in queue
• probably for reasons of cost, the ones irrelevant to the user are not filtered out

No idea what should have led to the current situation. While some of us observed something similar in the past (most obvious: if you suggest an edit which has to be approved, this was shown as "pending" though you certainly couldn't approve it yourself), it currently seems to be at a peak. I permanently have 20+ items shown in the "Collider™" (top toolbar), and when clicking it usually get an (almost) empty queue shown.

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This is a SE-wide thingy. I see the very same on SoftRecs. So if you're interested in a definite answer/solution, your question should probably go to Meta-SE. Or just pick the relevant question out there:

Notification for reviews shows way too much:

This indicator is shown only to moderators and users who've gained access to the moderator tools
[…]
you're being given a birds-eye view of the actual state of review.

So this confirms what we've already guessed: it is the number of overall items in queue. And it obviously is not seen as a bug, but as a feature …