Dismiss suggested edits which conflict with full edit instead of auto rejecting them

Question

Currently, once an edit by a user without full edit privilege is suggested, it can be either approved or rejected.

There is a known edge case that causes suggested edits to get auto rejected: (aka edit conflict)

1. User with full edit privilege click "edit" and start typing. Let's name this user Joe.
2. Since the user from previous step did not yet send the edit, users without full edit privilege can still click the "edit" as well, oblivious to the fact someone else is editing the same post in those very seconds. Such user click "edit" too and start typing. Let's name this user Kenny.
3. Kenny is faster than Joe: he sends his edit first, creating new suggested edit. Joe is still typing.
4. Joe is finally done typing. He sends his edit to its merry way oblivious to the consequences.
5. As result of the full edit made by Joe, Kenny's suggested edit is kicked away and rejected. Boom.

This is all known and reported many times. Recent example where the user got it hard with at least two auto rejections in short period of time. Some concrete examples: one, two, three.

For edge case, it became pretty thick edge. This is not just minor hassle: enough rejections, and the user is banned from suggesting for a whole week: and remember we're talking here about good edits made by good users.
The above used to count for the ban, but no longer do. Thanks Gilles for requesting such a change!

I know it was already suggested to lock edits and similar solutions, but I suggest whole different approach: instead of auto-rejecting the suggested edit, dismiss it, i.e. cancel it like it never existed same way a bounty can be revoked by moderator.

In the edit suggestion page, it will show "Dismissed" instead of Approved or Rejected maybe with a tooltip explaining what caused this. This will soften the blow from those edge cases, taking the edge out of them. :)

Answer 1

This feature is now live starting July 1, 2024. You can see this staff post on Meta Stack Overflow which describes the change in its entirety.

We don’t have “dismissed”, but we now have “cancelled” for suggested edits that are canceled by the Community bot due to a conflicting subsequent edit.

We can also now see the number of edits that are canceled in the editor stats section within the suggested edit review queue:

Answer 2

Yes. I think it should be like this, too.

Here is the standard process that I would wish for:

• If the reviewers choose to approve or improve edit, the edit should be approved.
• If the suggested edit has been conflicted with another edit, the system should auto-mark it as dismissed.
• If the reviewers choose to reject or reject and edit, it should be marked as rejected.

Answer 3

To add to User447378's answer, I would also like to propose the following:

Good (approved) edits:

• Approve

• Improve edit

Neutral (dismissed/invalidated) edits:

• This edit conflicted with a subsequent edit.

• This item is not/no longer reviewable. (Edit conflict due to rollback)

• Post was locked - suggested edit cannot be processed. (Post locked - Example.)

Bad (rejected) edits:

• Reject

• Reject and edit

By using this method, it will make it more explicit that Reject and edit outcomes do count towards the ban, unlike the other auto-declined reasons.