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Your summary page shows "N Edits to your posts" for the selected time period but you really have to be looking for it.

Could we add edits to the notification feed? You could put the reason for the edit (entered--or not--when the editor changes it) and just a link to the post.

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6
  • Also linked to this: meta.stackexchange.com/questions/2303/… (Yes it is shown on the related but needs more attention too, I guess)
    – Ege Özcan
    Commented Jan 17, 2012 at 17:11
  • So, is this being taken care of? I would really appreciate something like this.
    – RileyE
    Commented Jan 24, 2013 at 19:04
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    Cletus, this is implemented, so you should accept this answer (also @RileyE)
    – Tobias Kienzler
    Commented Mar 14, 2013 at 9:14
  • @TobiasKienzler Thanks Tobias. Is there a feature request for notifications upon our question's answers or our answer's question being edited? I know that can change how we accept, upvote, downvote and answer on SO, so I think its a valid request, right? I've been downvoted because I answered a question that was edited and my answer was incorrect for the current state of the question.
    – RileyE
    Commented Mar 14, 2013 at 15:14
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    @RileyE I once requested Notify question OP (and those who marked it a favourite) if an answer has been modified (no success so far) and here's the other way around: Notify us when the question has been edited after posting an answer
    – Tobias Kienzler
    Commented Mar 14, 2013 at 15:24
  • @TobiasKienzler Oh. That should also probably extend to notifying the people who favorited if an answer is selected. Or maybe an answer subscription option for a certain question? But thank you so much!
    – RileyE
    Commented Mar 14, 2013 at 15:27

5 Answers 5

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34

I agree - this feature can be useful as a way to teach new users how to improve their questions, especially if a description of what was edited will be available as well.

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1
  • 2
    +1 for this feature can be useful as a way to teach new users how to improve their questions
    – Matt
    Commented Jan 23, 2012 at 11:03
28

With the new notifications section in the global inbox, this is now done for substantive edits to your post and for any pending suggested edits to your post.

When an edit is made to your post:

Your post was edited.

When the edit applies to code:

Code in your post was edited.

When an edit is suggested on your post:

An edit was suggested to your post, please review it.

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4
  • 2
    (Now expecting the notification An image was added to your post! ;-))
    – Arjan
    Commented Jun 17, 2012 at 16:28
  • This is great, thanks for the update! What was that last SE notification for?
    – RileyE
    Commented Mar 14, 2013 at 15:16
  • @Shog or animuson - can you perform your dev-foo magic and make this answer accepted so it's on top?
    – Shadow Wizard
    Commented Nov 21, 2016 at 23:02
  • Naw, but I'll upvote it @Shadow.
    – Shog9
    Commented Nov 21, 2016 at 23:11
20

Now that we have the global inbox, these notifications should be shown there.

The message could be something like:

edit on Why do java arrays have no indexOf method?
Added: return NOT_FOUND;

I.e. first the question title, then the edit comment. The link could either go to the revision list or the question/answer itself.

The inbox could also include suggested edits on my posts by people who don't yet have enough reputation, so I could approve/reject them myself, without needed intervention of other edit-approvers. (They would still be visible on the global queue, of course.)

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2
  • YES. I really hope this gets implemented. I want to know right away if someone edits my answer.
    – Adam Rackis
    Commented Jan 17, 2012 at 17:30
  • @adam don't support for the reasons in my answer
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Jan 23, 2012 at 10:58
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+50

I don't support this:

  • I think it will lead to a lot of edit wars. You, sir, had the audacity to edit my post? In reality you should not care if others edit your posts, since you trust the global community as a caretaker of your content -- right? I'm thinking of the wikipedia folks who monitor every tiny change to a page and have a hair trigger revert finger.. it's happened to me many times there.

  • I can tell you that virtually none of the edits I see are "inbox worthy" on metas, so right off the bat I wouldn't want meta edit notifications, which to me is a symptom of not needing them altogether.

  • Every new notification we add to the global inbox adds to the "crying wolf" factor of the global inbox and devalues other future messages.

  • I really only want things directed TO me in the global inbox, not random things that happened to my posts that I might or (most likely) might not care about.

There is also a trivial workaround: you can periodically check your profile to see what edits have occurred on your posts, and take action as you see fit.

Additionally, there is a topbar notification for edits as well.

You have {n} new edits. See your responses.

See it here for me:

You have {n} new edits. See your responses.

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9
  • 1
    The prospect of such a feature generating edit wars definitely gives me pause, I'd have to say.
    – Andrew Barber
    Commented Jan 23, 2012 at 10:59
  • 2
    Actually, I really care about edits on my posts, especially since they are such rare (19 edits in my whole SO history, with 1075 answers and 9 questions. It looks like edits on meta are much more often ... or simply edits on questions are much more often than on answers). And your workaround only works for individual sites, not network wide (or I missed the "responses" tab on my SE profile).
    – Paŭlo Ebermann
    Commented Jan 23, 2012 at 12:45
  • Jeff you're actively overblowing a point of your own by conflating goals. You don't want notifications on any child meta, because only mods or you can do that. If a mod edited your post, it should REALLY be a good edit. Don't lump Meta Stack Exchange in with [child-meta], because they aren't the same, and we know it. I feel the need to edit your post to remove that, just because I can. However, it detracts from your point, so it's a toss-up.
    – jcolebrand
    Commented Jan 23, 2012 at 19:14
  • @jcole what? Any user with 2k rep on the parent site can edit other people's posts on any child meta any time they want. No idea what you're talking about.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Jan 23, 2012 at 19:40
  • oO seriously? I've been told time and again no editing. FFS. Also, I need to push one of my accounts non-trilogy up over 2k...
    – jcolebrand
    Commented Jan 23, 2012 at 19:47
  • @jcole I think you are thinking of suggested edits, which indeed isn't enabled on metas. But 2k users can edit anywhere, as per usual
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Jan 30, 2012 at 18:19
  • @JeffAtwood I think you're correct sir.
    – jcolebrand
    Commented Jan 30, 2012 at 19:20
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    Does the topbar edit notification only appear when you've been inactive for a certain period? I just stumbled upon a completely idiotic edit to one of my posts that I don't remember being informed about. I see now that it's in my responses tab, but thanks to the global inbox, I never think of looking there anymore.
    – mmyers
    Commented Feb 3, 2012 at 18:58
  • I care about edits to my posts. I don't edit-war; most of the time I'd just like to see what happened. In the unlikely event that someone misunderstands what I said badly enough to edit my code into broken and/or dangerous (with my name still on it) I will of course want to do something about that. Currently I use my WebCheck program to check all my answers, but I'm running into problems with StackExchange servers telling me I'm sending them too many requests. It would be nice to have some reassurance that I will be notified, so my script doesn't have to routinely fetch 130+ pages for this
    – Silas S. Brown
    Commented Mar 26 at 12:13
15

I agree this should be implemented, even our top users only get 10 or so a month.

https://stackoverflow.com/users/22656/jon-skeet?tab=responses

I think every one of those edits are inbox worthy. Let Jon decide if they make sense.

I have this on the Trello board, will discuss with the team.

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11
  • 1
    it's trivial for users who care about edits to check their responses tab for edits every week or so.. why would we want to "cry wolf" and nag them every single time this happens at the time it happens? That would also devalue global inbox substantially with naggy messages that aren't even replies specifically directed at them.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Jan 23, 2012 at 11:05
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    at 20k reputation you would be looking at a whooping 2 notifications per month, I would not call that "crying wolf" the best time to teach people is close to the time the action happened.
    – waffles
    Commented Jan 23, 2012 at 11:09
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    codinghorror.com/blog/2004/10/just-say-no.html "Innovation is not about saying yes to everything. It's about saying NO to all but the most crucial features." Sure, add this notification to global inbox.. what's the harm.. then another.. then another.. what's the harm? Without discipline and rigor, pretty soon the inbox becomes just another eminently ignorable source of noise. Inbox is supposed to be only for the absolutely most important things, things directly specifically at you that need your response.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Jan 23, 2012 at 11:12
  • however if you want to add another "subtab" to inbox for low-pri stuff like edits I possibly could support that. But it absolutely cannot increment the big red IMPORTANT counter.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Jan 23, 2012 at 11:16
  • 1
    @JeffAtwood we have a general serious issue around notifications I feel needs to be addressed, there are just too many incoming buckets. We have notifications in the inbox. We have big notifications in the header of the page, that only go away when you click x or the link. We have notification numbers on the user profile in 4 tabs. Too many buckets to check and deal with. Too many buckets.
    – waffles
    Commented Jan 23, 2012 at 11:18
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    @JeffAtwood actually I am fine with that ... I feel having "low pri" info in the inbox would allow us to get rid of a few buckets ... want to find stuff out .. go to inbox.
    – waffles
    Commented Jan 23, 2012 at 11:19
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    well, the wrong solution is to start spamming our users with tons of meaningless alerts in the one really great notification system we have. It is great precisely because it is so disciplined and does not waste my time with irrelevant stuff. And for the record, I still don't think edit notifications are very important at all, there are at least 5 or 6 other things I would put in front of them like bounty notifies, accepted answer changes, etc.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Commented Jan 23, 2012 at 11:19
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    @JeffAtwood except that we do waste your time, in 2/3 different ways depending on which bucket the notification reaches. I am the last person to advocate spamming users with crap.
    – waffles
    Commented Jan 23, 2012 at 11:21
  • @waffles Looks like the link to the responses tab is only visible for Jon and moderators, not for me.
    – Paŭlo Ebermann
    Commented Jan 23, 2012 at 12:35
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    @PaŭloEbermann replace the /22656/jon-skeet with your own information. They used it for example because everyone knows Skeet. Additionally, very few people but Skeet have the skill, knowledge or audacity to edit most of his posts.
    – jcolebrand
    Commented Jan 23, 2012 at 19:12
  • @waffles I'm all about having a single bucket of low-importance that aggregates all my site-updates so that I don't have to click the X or visit and look at a sub-tab.
    – jcolebrand
    Commented Jan 23, 2012 at 19:15

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