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Sometimes users with high reputation end up editing someone else's answer thinking that they are editing their own. This has happened to me several times - both when I edited someone's response and when my answers have been edited inadvertently.

Do you think it would be a good idea to add a visual confirmation of editing someone else's content, say, adding a light background to the editor and/or a message above the editor stating something like "Editing an answer by so and so"?

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    Rare enough an occasion and easy enough to revert. – Oded Jan 20 '13 at 15:34
  • Agree with @Oded This has happend to or been caused by me maybe a dozen times, and it's never been anything a revert and an apology couldn't correct. – Michael Berkowski Jan 20 '13 at 19:40
  • @Oded I agree that a revert fixes the content. However, I think the fix (showing a different background when you edit content created by someone else) could be very simple, making it worthwhile to add this feature. – Sergey Kalinichenko Jan 20 '13 at 20:18
  • What evidence do you have that this has ever happened. – Rosinante Jan 21 '13 at 2:26
  • @Rosinante Yes, I do. – Sergey Kalinichenko Jan 21 '13 at 3:13
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As far as I can tell, if the user is going to edit the answer, it's usually to fix something that they found incorrect or to provide more information. This goes for editing their own answers or somebody elses.

In this case I don't see it being that much of an issue, since I can think of few instances where an "accidental edit" may be bad like this.

If it is, it can be reverted quickly enough as @Oded mentioned in comment.

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  • I do not disagree that a revert fixes the content adequately. However, the fix could be simple enough to warrant doing it anyway, preventing unwanted edits in the first place. – Sergey Kalinichenko Jan 20 '13 at 20:19
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I tend to agree with @Oded and @Rudi-Visser: The essence of SO is not the person behind the answer/content - but the content itself. The goal of SO is to generate high quality content: so if someone is editing and improving a question or an answer all the community gain from this.

  • Since the author of the question / answer is being notified of an edit he / she can (and should) review the change. If this change is not approved the rollback mechanism is quite easy to use.

  • Since the authorship credit as well as last editor credit are all displayed clearly for each post, there is no need for further highlights.

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