Why can't I edit a question I have reviewed

Question

Or, why are my approvals of other user's edits not actioned in the same way my own edits are?

I have noticed that, should I approve or improve an edit by another member of the community under the Review page, if I then (for an indeterminate period afterwards) try and edit that same question from the main Questions page, when I open the question I see an edit pending, ie., edit (1) and if I hit edit, I get a message saying:

You have already reviewed this item. It needs more reviews from other users to be completed.
jasonwryan reviewed this 6 mins ago: Approve

This seems odd. If I had just opened the question and hit edit, I have sufficient rep that my edit would be accepted immediately; but if I approve another user's edit then it requires further community moderation?

Is this a bug? It sure feels like one.

Answer 1

I think you're under the impression you would've been able to edit the post directly if only you hadn't approved the edit first, which isn't the case; clicking the edit link of a post with a pending suggestion just pops up the suggestion and asks you to review it. Why can't I approve edits? explains why a suggestion needs multiple votes even though the user could make edits themselves. Improving the suggestion exists for just the case where an editor is blocked from editing until a suggestion gets out of the way, so if you improve the edit and submit that it should go through without the need for more votes, since you've presumably read the post more closely if you're improving it.

In this case it looks like you approved instead of improving, so in that case your vote is locked in until more people vote. So if you do want to make more changes, make sure you pick "Improve" instead of "Approve"