I used the PostHistory table and ran a Python diff ratio using the first and last edits for both questions and answers. This is supposed to give 1 if the posts are identical and 0 if there are no similarities found.

The results are pretty different — I'm not familiar enough with SO to know why it's come out like this. There could well be a very simple reason — or a basic processing error on my part! — to explain it

Here are histograms for posts with 2 or more edits:

Questions:

Answers:

Disclosure: This is part of my PhD research — answers or useful comments will be acknowledged.

I used the PostHistory table and ran a Python diff ratio using the first and last edits for both questions and answers. This is supposed to give 1 if the posts are identical and 0 if there are no similarities found.

The mean diff for questions was 0.92, whereas for answers it was 0.94 (they are both close to 1 as many posts are not edited). Moreover 35% of questions have been edited compared to only 20% of answers.

The shape of editing is different between the two, however, with questions getting more smaller edits than answers (questions in red, answers blue dashed):

I'm interested in the differences in edits between questions and answers

Disclosure: This is part of my PhD research — answers or useful comments will be acknowledged.

I used the PostHistory table and ran a Python diff ratio using the first and last edits for both questions and answers. This is supposed to give 1 if the posts are identical and 0 if there are no similarities found.

The results are pretty different - I'm not familiar enough with SO to know why it's come out like this. There could well be a very simple reason - or a basic processing error on my part! - to explain it

Here are histograms for posts with 2 or more edits:

Questions:

Answers:

Disclosure: this is part of my PhD research - answers or useful comments will be acknowledged

I used the PostHistory table and ran a Python diff ratio using the first and last edits for both questions and answers. This is supposed to give 1 if the posts are identical and 0 if there are no similarities found.

The results are pretty different — I'm not familiar enough with SO to know why it's come out like this. There could well be a very simple reason — or a basic processing error on my part! — to explain it

Here are histograms for posts with 2 or more edits:

Questions:

Answers:

Disclosure: This is part of my PhD research — answers or useful comments will be acknowledged.