38
votes
Accepted
Has something happened to shift keys recently?
It's the downside of success: this site is growing, and that means we're attracting more and more people who don't necessarily know what they're doing.
Seeing a sloppily-worded question lowers my ...
25
votes
Editing other people's posts to remove "thanks"
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 ...
19
votes
Jeff Schaller-Why do you put your picture up on every edit?
The profile picture (including the username and reputation points etc.) of the most recent user editing a post, whether moderator or not, is attached to the post together with information about when ...
KusalanandaMod
- 312k
16
votes
tutorials/guidelines on posting
Moderators could well do editing, but there's only a few of us, and there's a lot of other users that edit questions too. Editing is done to correct formatting issues that otherwise would potentially ...
KusalanandaMod
- 312k
15
votes
Has something happened to shift keys recently?
I have been doing my share of i -> I changes and I feel your pain. We all make mistakes, especially if English is not the first language, but consistency in spelling is something one can expect IMO. (...
- 77.4k
15
votes
Accepted
editing an answer to add code example, and then it was reverted
I agree with improving existing answers; so does the help center:
When should I edit posts?
Any time you feel you can make the post better, and are inclined to do so. Editing is encouraged!
...
- 65.5k
15
votes
Accepted
Why was this edit rolled back?
You did absolutely nothing wrong. Quite the opposite, your edit was useful and made the post into an actual answer. Without your edit, that wasn't a valid answer for this site. Thanks!
I have now re-...
terdonMod
- 228k
13
votes
Accepted
Adding a tag which refers to the best answer in the case of /sed and /awk when there is also /text-processing?
Tags help display questions to the right people. They don't mainly function to describe a question.
Tags are mainly additive, not subtractive. People follow tags to hear about new questions in those ...
- 106k
12
votes
To what extent are changes to posts of others OK? When does the meaning change?
I had a similar discussion on Meta SO some time ago. Quite frankly:
I consider the SO position dumb.
On both Ask Ubuntu and Unix & Linux (I find both these sites are very similar when it comes ...
- 67.8k
12
votes
Accepted
Dealing with substantial improvements to answers
I'm going to take your 2 questions in reverse order.
Perhaps there should be a way to gently tell the editor to post the edits as a new answer. As far as I can tell the current interface doesn't ...
slmMod
- 358k
11
votes
Has something happened to shift keys recently?
Maybe not an answer for the exact situations you're encountering, but from the little German I've learned, I know Germans capitalize nouns. So, maybe they would have a tendency to write something like ...
10
votes
Accepted
Editing: command tools format
There's a great, relevant quote in this Meta SO answer:
If such a user gives one of my posts a terminal case of Lyme disease by adding twenty back-ticks then, bam, a quick rollback is all it takes to ...
- 3,097
9
votes
Is it appropriate to reword questions to make them more generic in prep to make them community wiki?
You can make many improvements to questions, but you should leave the intent of the OP as is. And diversity can be of interest as well.
What you might consider as "The OP doesn't know what their ...
- 77.4k
8
votes
Accepted
What to do with a misleading part of the question?
That would indeed have been a good edit to make but you're quite right that it would have looked strange at first glance.
I have now removed the second, misleading question from the post. Thanks for ...
terdonMod
- 228k
8
votes
Accepted
I got a down-vote I really disagree with and flagging it was probably a mistake
First of all, mods can't see who voted on what. That is confidential and only available to SE employees. Also, since you mention it, what you did is a clear abuse of the flagging system. As you ...
terdonMod
- 228k
8
votes
Best practice: add and harmonize missing input filenames for Qs & As?
If harmonized file names are really useful to follow the question and answers, then please do harmonize them. Pick a sensible set, preferably the one in the question, failing that one used in an ...
8
votes
tutorials/guidelines on posting
Partly echoing Kusalananda's words, I would add a couple of remarks I hope can be of help.
First, don't take edits personally.
The Stack Exchange platform aims to be unique1:
This design choice ...
- 9,671
7
votes
Trivial edits to remove posts from the close queue?
Personal thoughts
Only yesterday, I discovered similar behaviour after I edited an answer in the Low Quality Posts queue. At first, I was surprised to find that the review was immediately marked as ...
- 12.3k
7
votes
Accepted
I don't get why my question needs an edit
Your version loses the line breaks, which makes it much harder to read than the edited versions.
Compare your version:
with this edited version:
- 394k
7
votes
Accepted
"Edit Summary" How to edit a post correctly?
The edit summary should explain to the author of the post and to anyone else who reads it why the edit was made. So, instead of writing "plz help me" there, write something like "Removed irrelevant ...
terdonMod
- 228k
7
votes
Accepted
See the source of a post when the edit button is disabled
You don't need to edit to view the source.
Get the post ID (click on share, or look at the question URL, note the first number). For your question, that would be 3559.
Go to <site.name>/posts/&...
- 67.8k
7
votes
Editing other people's posts to remove "thanks"
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 ...
- 46.8k
6
votes
inform about edits after downvotes
it would be nice to be informed of edits to a post which one has downvoted
I had a similar thought, and chased it down through various Metas, eventually landing at Stack Apps: Get a list of posts you'...
- 65.5k
5
votes
An edit for answer changes it considerably. Should I allow it?
The Stack Overflow (site, not company) policy on this is to reject any edits which change the content, and not form, of the answer.
I call this dumb. (I've had this debate there.)
We are not here to ...
- 67.8k
5
votes
Completely changed answer: edit or new answer?
If your existing answer had received votes (up- or down-), I would restrict edits to improvements on that answer. If it had not yet received any votes, I say go ahead and change it completely if you ...
- 65.5k
5
votes
Confirm or rollback this edit
I think it's fine. After all, the end result here is that the accepted answer (which will be shown first since it is accepted) is now more correct. Nobody copied anyone else and what we really care ...
terdonMod
- 228k
4
votes
Accepted
What should I do with minor edits made, where I must put much effort into getting it into *usable* state
This is largely a question of personal preference. If you feel the editor didn't really put in enough work and is just creating work for the reviewers, you can reject.
If you're in a good mood and ...
terdonMod
- 228k
4
votes
Accepted
Dealing with questionable edits?
If you see an edit your strongly disagree with, you have the following options:
If you have enough rep, fix it yourself or, if you don't, suggest an edit fixing it. If you disagree with the entire ...
terdonMod
- 228k
4
votes
Accepted
Viewing posts that you've edited, but were later deleted or merged?
You had edited these two posts (1,2) which were later closed and subsequently deleted. I'm afraid there's no way for you to see them before you get 10k rep, but your edit was fine in case you were ...
terdonMod
- 228k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible