Earlier today I got this message:
Oops! Your edit couldn't be submitted because:
However, the purpose of my edit was to change the formatting for a message to show code. There may have been other grammatical mistakes that could have been, but in general it is possible that there would not be. What's the correct protocol to handle a situation like this?
There is some overhead with processing edit submissions. Note that the rule does not apply, when you fix your own post without needing anyone else to approve your edit.
Where the balance between the cost of edit review and the benefit of the edit actually happening lies, and whether a mechanical rule can approximate it, is of course somewhat controversial, but for the time being it is the 6 character rule.
The rule tries to ensure that when you spot a typo and go fix it without much thinking, you should take the same opportunity to revise the whole post, as opposed to submitting all typo fixes into the edit queue as you are discovering them one by one.
If you think that there is nothing else to fix in the post, and that the single letter fix is essential, really absolutely necessary to make the post clear enough, feel free to any of the following, in the increasing order of how much fuss politically you want to make about that kind of typo, and about the 6 character rule.
Expect that if you involve experienced users, they will typically find other issues (formatting, style, grammar, title searchability, tags) in the post and they will look at your request as something that you could have done as well.
Finally, note that the new edit queues (just launched) are expected to make processing of the edit queue much easier for approvers and they might make the need for the 6 character rule eventually obsolete.
[tag:support] links to Stack Overflow. If you want the MSO tag, use [meta-tag:support]. In one of the cruelest ironies, my attempted edit (the addition of "meta-") is only 5 characters and was thus rejected.
Commented
Jul 18, 2012 at 19:17
This rule is to enforce an actual edit of the entire question. Jeff Atwood himself has said that there is likely a part of the question that has a possibility for improvement outside of your original edit. And that justifies the limit (for now) on char.
This was implemented to curb people's desires to simply eliminate a period or something finicky to be annoying or gain easy reputation. It also takes time for all the edits to be reviewed, so SO wants them to be semi-substantial.
In your case, where there really only needs to be a one or two char response, it can be a more annoying rule to deal with. Perhaps the post could use a small grammatical error fix or capitalization? If you also add something harmless to the question that doesn't change the meaning of it, then you can bypass the 6 char limit as well. In some cases, people also comment to the OP to change the small problem, and it can be completed without any error messages.
It's all about that 2k :)
If your edit isn't at least 6 characters then it is "too minor". When you suggest edits the purpose should be to significantly improve the post, not to just capitalize an 'i', add a period, etc. There is a cost associated with all edits that are made, and making small changes like this, if they provide any benefit at all, tend to not surpass that "cost" which is why the net effect is negative.
