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I was going through suggested edits in the review queue and noticed many small edits like this:

In several of the cases, these seem to be new users who are doing a lot of small edits and not much else, such as this user:

I haven't the patience to check all of these, but at least several (and I suspect all or almost all) of them are "Removed tag from title" edits.

While these edits are good because we don't like tags in titles, it seems a little absurd that someone should be able to gain so much rep by contributing so little to the site. Thoughts?

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    That specific user appears to be on a spree in this last hour. Some of the edits, like this, are even more minor, specifically excising the names of programming languages from titles even if they're not being used as tags.
    – David Robinson
    Commented Jan 4, 2013 at 0:50

2 Answers 2

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The edit pictured is one that probably should have been rejected. It's perfectly fine to have a tag in the title if it's worked in naturally. What we don't want to see are titles like [Java] Implementing API keys. Rewording that to Implementing API keys in Java would be okay. (Asking an actual question would be even better.) Editing a question just to remove a keyword when there are other problems that need to be addressed is not a substantial enough edit.

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  • Would you say, then, that if there seem to be no other problems with the post, it should be accepted? Or perhaps the moderator should "Improve" and make the same edit, not marking the suggested edit as helpful?
    – jtbandes
    Commented Jan 4, 2013 at 5:04
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    If the only problem with a post is an extra word in the title, or an unneded "Thanks" at the end, we can probably live with that. There are much worse problems the editor could fix. Doing the same edit yourself, just not to give the proposed edit the +2 rep, seems like not the right thing to do. Either it is a correct edit, or it is not.
    – Bo Persson
    Commented Jan 4, 2013 at 8:16
  • I've just been reviewing some 'remove tag from title' reviews and rejected them, but I've been outnumbered by the approvers. Examples: stackoverflow.com/review/suggested-edits/4455884, stackoverflow.com/review/suggested-edits/4455887, stackoverflow.com/review/suggested-edits/4455888. It so happens that it is the same person making the changes, but that's immaterial to my questions which are (1) "Should these suggested edits have been approved?" — clearly, I think not, and this answer seems to agree — and (2) "Is there anything that can be done about these misguided edits?"
    – Jonathan Leffler
    Commented Mar 29, 2014 at 20:54
  • @JonathanLeffler Removing tags from titles is fine if that's the only thing that needs to be done. This edit and this edit look ok to me. That is, there's nothing else that jumps out at me about them that needs improving. I would have edited the first sentence out of this one, but that's about it.
    – Bill the Lizard
    Commented Mar 29, 2014 at 21:10
  • OK; I'll adjust my expectations. Thanks. (Do you want to clean up this triplet of comments, or will it provide help to people in the future?)
    – Jonathan Leffler
    Commented Mar 29, 2014 at 21:12
  • @JonathanLeffler My answer here is pretty short, so I think they help provide clarification.
    – Bill the Lizard
    Commented Mar 29, 2014 at 21:14
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Why absurd?

They're taking care of the site by fixing those titles. It can onlygo on for so much since you can gain a maximum of 1000 points by suggested edits.

Since they're providing a service by editing the posts, why not reward it? Certainly if the edit is too minor, then you can reject it as such. But if the edit is legitimate then I see nothing wrong here.

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  • Good answer - once he's been rejected a few times for minor edits he'll learn what's good and what isn't.
    – slugster
    Commented Jan 4, 2013 at 1:03

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