Can we get a better conflict resolution to edits vs suggested edits

Question

So reading this meta question, it sounds like a real edit will always take precedence over a suggested edit, when it comes to edit conflict resolution, even if the suggested edit is better. This also seems to be the case from my personal experience right here.

My profile says that I suggested an edit on this question but no where in the edit history do you see my edits. My edit was after revision 3 and conflicted with revision 4 which was made by a 10k+ user. He only added a line asking for explanation. I actually suggested fixes with the grammar, and other issues with the question. So I would think that my edit was more substantial.

So can we:

1. Get an explanation of how this process actually works. Ironically this question, does nothing for explaining how edit conflicts are resolved.

2. If the comment made by @animuson on the answer to this question here is correct. Then can we get a better system in place to take care of conflicts between substantial suggested edits, and real edits made?

3. Allow users to see the review of what happened to their suggested edit on the edit history screen. How you currently find it is not very intuitive.

I don't know about everyone else, but if I put in the effort to suggest a good edit, and then see that effort go to nothing, I don't particularly want to expend that effort again.

EDIT: To everyone, thanks for answering, but the question I linked to was simply an example, what I really want to ask about and what I am suggesting is, point number 2 and 3 above.

Answer 1

Actually, in this case someone hit the 'improve' button on your edit; I see an 'Edit' vote on your suggested edit.

I fear that the improved edit then still did conflict, but with another suggested edit instead, this suggested edit, which was improved upon as well. Saving the approved version is what conflicted with yours, and then your edit was rejected.

You suggested your edit at 6:31, the other suggested edit was made at 6:30. stealthyninja approved and improved the other edit at 6:32, matching the timestamp of the Community reject.

The edit Stuart LC made was made as an improvement to your edit, but not until 6:33. By that time the diff for your suggested edit would have looked rather poor.

Probably Stuart LC marked your edit as not helpful, he could not have known that your edit had been substansive, because the UI only shows the difference between the newer revision and your edit. This did not, however matter; your edit had already been rejected because of the conflict with the earlier suggested edit!

The problem here is that the post was new and had many obvious mistakes in it to improve. You entered an editing frenzy with several others. That is always a risk with new badly written posts, you may want to stay away from such fresh editing targets in the future.

Answer 2

There were actually two people who choose to improve your suggested edit at the same time, these two revisions (1, 2) are both the results of people improving on your suggestion. Those two edits conflicted with each other, which needed to be resolved. Both of the edits were proposed after your edit was made. The first edit to be applied applied all of your changes, as well as his own, and the second edit just covers the change for which the second edit differed from the first, which is why it appears to be so small. In fact it differs from your edit by a fair amount, he just made several of the same fixes as the person before him.

As for why the edit was rejected and not approved after being improved on, those users choose to not mark your edit as helpful and to instead reject it.

Answer 3

1. This only works if a user with full edit privileges was already in the process of making an edit at the time a user without full edit privileges suggested an edit. That user is able to complete their edits and, upon submission, automatically override the suggested edit with their changed (the suggestion gets instantly rejected by Community).

   As Martijn points out, users improving an edit is not the same thing. If you see an Edit action in the suggested edit page, then your edit was improved upon. If it was Rejected, then the user improving the edit explicitly stated that your edit was not helpful (by unchecking the box) and that is why it got rejected, not because of editing conflicts.

2. There really doesn't need to be. That is part of having full editing privileges. A user with full privileges should not be hindered in the process of making their edits by being forced to look over a suggested edit. If their edits do not make all the changes you wanted to make, you are always able to suggest another edit to make further changes.

   However, that being said, I'm curious if auto-rejections still count towards the suggested edit ban. It's not something that's been brought up before (as far as I know), but rejections due to editing conflicts should never contribute to an edit ban. That's another topic to bring up, though.

3. If you want to know why your edit was rejected, it is listed in your activity history. I do agree that it is incredibly inconvenient, and the current process requires you to look at them one by one in order to even see if they are Approved or Rejected. There are proposals out there such as notifications upon rejection and improving how they are listed in your profile, but the process has been slow because it's hard to find the perfect solution.

   Listing rejected suggested edits directly in the revision history, however, is not an option. The suggestion was rejected, and listing it there would only serve to confuse people as to why it's there and clutter the revision history with things that aren't truly relevant to the post at hand.