Editing other people's posts to remove "thanks"

Question

[paraphrased position 1]

Generally, if people abstained from doing edits that are just removing "thanks" and context phrasing (without doing any other improvements), that would be great. I perfectly understand the point of not cluttering questions with useless verbiage, but having someone actively enforcing the "no-thanks policy" on sight is incredibly rude -- and culturally insensitive to the point of becoming discriminatory.

The consensus has always been not to edit them out unless you're already editing the post, and then to take them out along with the other changes. That doesn't solve any of the interpersonal issues, in line with SE's usual practice, it just keeps pointless edits down.

v.s.

[paraphrased position 2] Reviewers should approve any edit that improves the post. ANY. Removing thanks improves the post, and should be encouraged.

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In earlier discussions, I saw "consensus" that edits that only remove "thanks" or "hi" were fine. At most, I remember (but cannot find) an answer from someone saying they would not make such an edit themselves, but did not see any harm in them.

Can we mark the current feeling of Unix & Linux SE here, in a dedicated post? The above discussions occurred on a question about something different, even if there was some overlap. If nothing else, it should be easier to find here.

terdon ♦ (a diamond moderator) was advocating against this type of edit.

I am not cultured enough myself to give evidence for all the statements in position 1. If you feel confident enough to contradict them, or you feel this is insulting you, please start from an assumption of good faith. I have posted my own argument as an answer, so you could respond to that argument if you find it preferable.

Answer 1

Personally I feel that any edit is worth making.

If it's just the removal of "Thanks" or the OP's name from the post this is fine. Putting questions into their best possible light is only a win, and it also demonstrates to the OP that someone is here already attempting to provide "some" assistance.

I would encourage that all edits be made if you're attempting to edit, and not just the "Thanks" when there's more typos to be fixed. I've seen this behavior from time to time here and that behavior is probably what most would find off putting.

Bottom line, make the questions shine and look both aesthetically pleasing as well as grammatically correct as possible.

Answer 2

The most important thing for a new user asking a question is to get answers.

When someone's first contact with the site is to ask a question, that's usually because they have a problem to solve, not because they want to join a community. Joining a community comes later, if the community has proven to be useful or interesting.

So when evaluating questions from new users, don't focus exclusively on your perception of what's rude and what isn't. Not only because your perception might not match that person's at all, but also because it often isn't the most important factor. Note that I'm not saying that you should be rude, of course, or even that it's ok to be rude. It isn't. But if you refrain from certain actions just because it might possibly be interpreted as rude, you're missing the point.

What's the effect of an edit that removes “thanks”?

Objectively, it improves the chances for the post to get answered. Having less clutter gives it a better chance of being read. Editing the post bumps it, giving it another go on the front page.

Subjectively, however, there are downsides. When an asker sees some interaction with their post, but that interaction doesn't solve their problem, that often creates a backlash. “Yeah, you did something, but why didn't you help me?”

For this reason, I recommend against making minor edits to a recent, unanswered questions. By “minor edit”, I mean one that doesn't make a real difference to the readability of the post: fixing trivial spelling mistakes like “i” → “I”, removing “Thanks in advance” at the end of the post. Spelling errors in potential search keywords, retags, title improvements, formatting multiline code fragments as code, and so on are significant improvements and should be done no matter what. And if these include the removal of “thanks”, that's fine.

Also, if a rule is not that important, don't try to teach the rule. “Don't put thanks at the end of posts” or “‘I’ is always capitalized” is not that important. If you start educating a newcomer who's still waiting for an answer, expect them to be angry that you're wasting their time. Do teach the rule if there is a clear link between following the rule and getting an answer or if it requires an action from the poster, for example if the question contains screenshots of text, or if the question is missing some information. If it's a reason to close the question, absolutely do teach the rule. If not, then probably the rule isn't that important.

Answer 3

I agree more with position 1.

It is extremely surprising for a user, to learn that some readers consider "thanks" harmful enough, that they will edit purely to remove it.

I saw a similar edit on a question marked as being from a new user. I cannot see enforcing this on new users as being "welcoming". If the poster works out what's going on, it feels like a rebuke: "don't do this again". Editors often don't take the time to provide an edit reason, that explains why it is considered an improvement. And the amount of effort required for the poster to try and work out what's going on seems disproportionate. That applies to removing either "thanks" or "hi".

StackExchange already has significant surprises. E.g. the use of editing (plus the way comments interact with this) seems unfamiliar from nearly any other form of human discussion. At minimum, I would wait until I could see someone was in a comfortable position, before I tried to teach them about a "no thanks policy". By default, while you are asking a question, you are in a fairly exposed position.

I don't know exactly how to promote this position. I'm not sure that I feel much better if an edit fixes the spelling of a word (technical jargon or otherwise) at the same time as removing "thanks". And I am sceptical that editors would remember to write an edit reason, linking to the Meta explaining that StackExchange prefers questions without "thanks".

I admit I highly enjoy reading posts without "hi" and "thanks" at either end. But I don't understand how policing this through edits can be worth the cost.

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Having less clutter gives it a better chance of being read.

I don't "get" this. I can imagine it being true statistically, and a contributing factor if the rest of the question is a challenge to read. I struggle to imagine that the increase in probability is significant from the point of view of the poster.

if a rule is not that important, don't try to teach the rule

I agree the aim is not to teach posters every detail of how write a perfect question "for next time". We don't need edit descriptions to include an itemized list of references for spelling and grammar. My problem is that removing "thanks" is us being idiosyncratic. It then takes effort for posters e.g. to distinguish this from vandalism by a rogue user.

I suppose that argument is not as relevant if you can tell the overall edit is clearly being helpful - i.e. removing "thanks" is combined with changes that are easy to understand as improving the question.

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If you're seeing the community helping you progress towards an answer, I think changes like "i" -> "I" are different from "thanks" -> "". In some contexts people do use lowercase because they like the style, but IMO you have to be very laconic to make that work well. When you've written several sentences, it's likely there are some other possible cleanups for readability (or for search keywords, or making the title a good summary...). Lowercase "i" is pretty idiosyncratic, to expect editors to try to preserve that style when they're improving readability. I think people understand that, and I don't remember it causing drama. Editors removing "thanks" that you put in is harder to understand. (Unless it feels like they rewrote the question as a whole, perhaps.)

Answer 4

I think the answer also depends on whether the changes from the user doing the edit need to be reviewed by other users, or if they have enough reputation for the edits to go into effect immediately.

I have been told that, as long as one’s edits need to be reviewed, they should keep to the important things, such as an overhaul of verbiage in order to be understood, or correcting formatting (e.g. for code), changing broken links, or somesuch. (When such an edit is done, the other things can be improved, but only then.)

And once the reputation is above the threshold, that minor edits to slightly improve legibility or so can also be made.

The idea here was, IIRC, that, while increasing the quality of posts (questions and answers alike) is good, overburdening the reviewers isn’t.