40
Absolutely. Yes indeedy. Thank you kindly. Editing a post to convert a non-editable image into malleable text is very helpful. Even if all the edit does is transcribe, it is absolutely a helpful edit.
So yes, please keep doing that and thank you for taking the time to do so!
37
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 urge to help, too. The less well-worded a question is, the higher the chance is that I'll simply ignore it when I'm browsing the question list. If I do decide to ...
answered Apr 20 '16 at 1:32
Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
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30
It is not an obligation, but it is in the spirit of the site. Think of future readers; you want to signpost the answer that you, the question asker, deemed most helpful so that it will be evident to others.
Don't worry about the original answerer losing some rep: it comes and it goes. What is important is that the wiki contains helpful answers and ...
26
There are two reasons why you shouldn't worry about “breaking rules”.
One reason is that the assertion that the user wants to “break local rule” is an assumption on your part. You have no way to know whether this is true. There is quite a leap of faith between “I want to install Screen” and “I want to bypass the job scheduler to run my jobs ahead of other ...
answered Jul 31 '16 at 22:26
Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
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16
I would prefer that people not do this.
Questions are already "linked" in that they are, or should be, tagged appropriately. People who are interested in specific topics tend to follow those tags, so will probably be aware of related questions anyway.
Commenting on their other answers, and including a link to your question, feels wrong to me for a couple ...
15
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. (The other thing that greatly annoys me is having no spaces behind punctuation, or having some before punctuation (assuming reading from left to right)).
I was ...
15
The solution to that situation is to not accept so quickly...
That sounds a bit simplistic, but consider that not everyone gets to see the question right when it's posted. There will be answers that come a bit later. Also, questions with accepted answers show up with a green box in the question list, immediately signalling "case closed" even before the ...
13
You may have a point in general, but I fear your example is a bad one. That edit was absolutely harmful! It changed a correct grammatical question ("How can I?") into something that is grammatically wrong: "How to?".
"How to" is not a question, it is a declaration. So "How to boil pasta" is a fine title for an article ...
12
U&L is a paltform for learning. I think the best approach is to downvote and leave a comment that addresses any factual errors, thereby providing the well-meaning but misinformed poster with an opportunity to increase their understanding and also alerting any other visitor to the page that the answer is erroneous and why.
The second point is important ...
12
My approach to "when to post multiple answers..." (something I've done myself a few times) is as follows:
When I have multiple approaches that tackle the problem in different ways and all of the various approaches have pros and cons. Then I post the multiple answers and let the community vote and comment on the approaches. This has proved effective in ...
11
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 "I ate some Fish at my Parents' house". Perhaps there's a pattern in the "random" words you're seeing?
From other experiences, I think that people who come ...
10
Acceptable? Sure, why not, it makes the question easier to read, search and use.
Should you be expected to spend your time on that? I don't think so.
The original asker is quite likely to already have the relevant data in text, so it's much easier for them to copy and paste the text to the question. Transcribing takes time and is prone to errors.
And ...
10
I think it is commendable where people in the community have the knowledge—and the willingness to share it—to include multiple approaches to solving a problem; for example, by providing solutions in more than one language.
Not only does this provide the original question asker with more options for them in addressing their specific issue, but it ...
9
If it's clear that the asker is satisfied with the answer, and it looks like they are new to Stack Exchange and don't know about this feature, then it's a good idea to explain in a comment that they should mark the answer as accepted. Basically, if the asker has left a comment under an answer saying something like “thanks, it worked”, then reply to this ...
answered Aug 6 '13 at 23:03
Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
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8
Well, first off, that user is not a new user having started with Stack Overflow 2 years ago.
That said, I don't think there is any reason to avoid improvement via editing for posts from new users. In fact, there is a review queue for first posts from new users (link requires 500 rep). One of the things you're encouraged to do is edit posts to improve them.
...
8
Post the exact same answer to multiple questions is generally bad. If the answers have partial overlap and you're tailoring them to fit each particular question, go for it
7
In general I don't like to give answers that ignore part of the question; nobody would answer a question about Chrome with "here's how you do it in Firefox". But text-processing is turning into rather a special case -- people constantly specify a particular tool when they don't actually care what tool is used. I prefer to check first, and ideally edit the ...
7
On the reviewer side, there's a meaningful difference between the current message:
This edit does not make the post even a little bit easier to read, easier to find, more accurate or more accessible. Changes are either completely superfluous or actively harm readability.
And your proposed:
Although your suggestion does not harm the post, I fail to see any ...
7
I think it’s OK.
I’m somewhat able to answer questions about shell scripts, awk and sed
(among other things), but I don’t always monitor the corresponding tags.
If somebody sees from one of my answers
that I’m likely to be able to answer their question,
I don’t mind having my attention drawn to it.
It seems a little unfair,
and may contribute to the “...
answered Dec 14 '17 at 3:37
G-Man Says 'Reinstate Monica'
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6
This is an interesting question. I believe the key to the situation is that Stack Exchange is not geared to handle individuals, but individuals' questions, with a preference for questions applicable to many people.
In general I would say do not assist someone to break local rules or laws. If there is a valid general question, you can and should answer it. ...
5
Is it appropriate for me to contact each of the listed users, stating my reasons for disagreeing?
No, please don't do that. If you edit a recently closed post to try and improve it, it's automatically put in a queue to be reviewed and possibly reopened. If that still doesn't work, you can click the "flag" link under the post and choose "in need of moderator ...
5
Yes.
That's one of the consequences of the XY problem.
Users tend to name out tools which they think might solve the current problem using the current approach. I have often seen people tag a question grep, sed, awk, and anything else they imagine can be used.
In the very case you mention, OP ends up using ed! Not grep, ed!
If someone is interested in ...
4
I think the idea behind the StackExchange format is that downvotes should deal with eliminating the noise.
If an answer is not getting the downvotes it deserves, it would be nice to have a way to attract the attention of other high-rep users.
Is there a way for a user to mark an answer for review by the community?
3
We'd rather you didn't; the intent is to encourage you to delete bad posts, not to post more of them. See Flaw in the Peer Pressure badge, Badges should reward positive behavior
3
You can do this in a comment and delete the comment after the accept-vote has been done.
Accepting answers leads to good answers. IMHO it can not hurt to say so.
2
Most modern keyboards are garbage for touch typists, no matter the brand or expense. Every keyboard I've had in the last 15 years has developed problems such as sticking keys, unreliable keys, and yes even the Shift, Ctrl, and Alt modifiers failing. I'll gladly own all my own grammar, spelling, and typing errors, but I do make an effort to be correct and ...
2
There are a lot of "experienced" users that are not knowledgeable and give incorrect answers. The voting system on SE sites is not perfect but is intended to help that (although I do think downvotes should be weighted equal to upvotes, also you cannot downvote comments).
Some of the things you can do about it are the following:
Trust that if the reader ...
2
WRT your example, I would have linked to the original with a brief explanation of why. This makes things easier to maintain if you or someone else decides to edit something at some point. Sometimes this might require you to flesh out and edit the original answer, which may produce a better overall result.
On the other hand, some people might consider an ...
2
Quick answer: no, not really.
There are two issues here:
Each site has a different scope. Yes, there is overlap. Everything on Unix & Linux (U&L) is also on topic on Super User (SU). Everything on Ask Ubuntu is also on topic on U&L. Nevertheless, Ubuntu questions are welcome here and will only be migrated in the, relatively unlikely, case that ...
1
My opinions:
It's not a duplicate question, however:
It should be noted in the question very clearly (by the asker) that (a) he knows how to do it using other tools and is aware of those other tools, and (b) he wants an answer specifically for the tool he is asking about.
A link should be provided to the more general question which contains answers for ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
