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I don't know if other people have noticed, but I've seen quite a rise in the number of silly edits that don't really "fix" anything in the questions, especially from newer users under 200 reputation. Maybe we should change the edit approval system so only users between, say, 250 and 2,000 reputation can suggest edits to posts, or maybe there needs to be more documentation on what a valid edit is and what kinds of edits should be made, especially for these newer users who don't have as much experience on the network. Do users get notified via a banner or anything when their suggestions are rejected, so that they can review their suggestion and the reason(s) it got rejected to further improve their editing skills?

Some of the main things I'm noticing that don't make much sense:

  • Putting class names and functions into inline code blocks. They really don't need to be inside code blocks. The text is perfectly readable without this change and I don't feel a suggestion which only contains these types of edits is worthy of an approval. Example suggestion, which I rejected for being too minor, but was approved by two others.

  • Updating the answer with further information, additional examples (I had an example I rejected for this but it doesn't want to appear in my recent history), or different code. That last one, honestly. Why are anonymous users being allowed to suggest edits? Is there some sort of limitation to that? Because to me, that just has edit spamming written all over it.

  • Very minor fixes to grammar.

Are these things really worthy of an edit or am I just being too strict (as I am known to be)?

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  • 4
    I'm all in favour of fixing grammar and will approve those if they're correct, but I very rarely like to approve an edit that is changing or appending information to an answer. To my mind those should be comments, not edits.
    – shanethehat
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 17:41
  • Any given minor edit could be badge farming or just pet peeves of the editors (grammar, code formatting, etc.), but I completely agree with your point about that code edit. Anonymous users shouldn't be allowed to suggest edits, in my opinion. And that one was just bad. Formatting the code is one thing, but changing the code itself doesn't contribute at all to the OP's problem at hand.
    – David
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 17:42
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    Your examples, in order: 1. I routinely approve edits like this. 2a. Rightly rejected, because it changes the meaning of the original post. 2b. Rightly rejected, because it changes the meaning of the original post. 3. I routinely approve edits like this.
    – user102937
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 17:47
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    Instead of removing anonymous and low rep edits, perhaps there should be a rate limit the number of suggested edits.
    – Some Helpful Commenter
    Commented Nov 15, 2011 at 18:02
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    I'm also rejecting those edits as "Too minor" (hence my review stats *coughs*), though, I have the feeling the majority does accept those as valid. Therefor I agree with you that you rejected those.
    – Time Traveling Bobby
    Commented Nov 16, 2011 at 9:10
  • @RobertHarvey: In that case I think the guide lines need to be changed, I think I don't need to quote the "Too minor" quote reason here, but 1 and 3 are falling for me under that reason (as do correction of one typo).
    – Time Traveling Bobby
    Commented Nov 16, 2011 at 9:12

1 Answer 1

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Maybe we should change the edit approval system so only users between, say, 250 and 2,000 reputation can suggest edits to posts

This really doesn't do anything much.

maybe there needs to be more documentation on what a valid edit is and what kinds of edits should be made, especially for these newer users who don't have as much experience on the network

The suggested edit screen does provide some guidelines:

How to Edit

- fix grammatical or spelling errors
- clarify meaning without changing it
- correct minor mistakes
- add related resources or links
- always respect the original author

Do users get notified via a banner or anything when their suggestions are rejected,

AFAIK, no - but the history of approvals/rejections along with reasons for rejection is always available at the user's activity page.

Some of the main things I'm noticing that don't make much sense:

I don't see why suggestions in 1 & 3 should be rejected. If someone's taken the time to go through the posts and improve them, no matter how trivial, they should be approved. It takes time and effort to edit posts - even the most trivial ones. Try wading through the crap that often comes throug, read, understand, comprehend and then suggest only it to be rejected because you found it "too trivial". Rejecting them is a total put off.

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    Just because someone is taking the time to edit doesn't mean they're doing it for the right reason. Honestly, replacing By with With does not make the post any more valuable. Anyone could still easily understand the original version and the user is getting 2 reputation for changing 1 word.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Nov 16, 2011 at 15:19
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    @animuson It doesn't matter what the reason is. The effort is there. Replacing one word might seem trivial but reading and finding out which word to change and what to seems easier than it actually is
    – Sathyajith Bhat
    Commented Nov 16, 2011 at 15:22

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