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This morning I found this question in the Low Quality Posts review list. The question has a comment by the OP which explains more precisely what the OPs requirements were.

My edit extracted this information and included it in the text of the question. I'm unsure whether I've made a good editing choice here because I've only just got to 2K and am used to having my edits approved by others.

My gut says I did the right thing because:

  • I'd have made the same edit and sent it for approval were I < 2K rep
  • The edit was based entirely on context from the OP's own comment.
  • I believe the question should explain itself. Without the edit, a future visitor would need to read the code sample in the question body, then read the accepted answer where context is quoted by the answerer. Having this in the question itself is better IMO.

I am reasonably confident I've done the right thing here. I'd like to be sure, so I'm asking the community.

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    I can't vote to close (or see said votes) but if you're worried about being localized you could edit the question to be "is including info from comments a constructive edit? For example..."
    – user176326
    Commented Aug 7, 2012 at 0:55
  • Indeed. I'll have a more through search on meta for questions using those terms and then close this if I find something that answers this for me. Thanks for the suggestion :)
    – Crippledsmurf
    Commented Aug 7, 2012 at 0:58
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    Absolutely, yes. And you did the right thing in mentioning that in your edit summary: it can look strange to reviewers when an edit adds information seemingly from nowhere and the only edit description is “added 1234 characters in body”, but when the edit summary is “added information from comments” or some such, all is clear.
    – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil'
    Commented Aug 7, 2012 at 11:03
  • Keep in mind that the OP will be notified that their post was edited, so if they think that you've totally twisted their words or changed the meaning of the question/answer they can roll back your edit or fix what they don't like about it.
    – Servy
    Commented Aug 7, 2012 at 16:37

1 Answer 1

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Yes, that's an excellent edit, IMO. You took an incomprehensible code-only question and turned it into a nice standalone question. Trust your instincts, they seem to be right on.

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    I also upvoted the question as a result. This also helps the op see what he could do with future questions to make them really great. This is essentially "coaching through editing". Because the op actually sees some upvotes on the question, this is more constructive than just leaving comments, IMHO
    – jmort253
    Commented Aug 7, 2012 at 1:05
  • didn't get the "force^H^H^H^H^Hyour instincts" part, do someone mind to explain this inside joke that I am obviously excluded?
    – ajax333221
    Commented Aug 7, 2012 at 5:06
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    @ajax333221 Edited to remove joke. See here and here for explanations.
    – Ernest Friedman-Hill
    Commented Aug 7, 2012 at 10:51

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