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In the following post, it became evident after some comments that the user had an XY problem:

find lpClassName of started application to be used in FindWindow wniapi c++?

With the OP's permission, I suggested an edit to make the actual problem more apparent, which was narrowly rejected:

https://stackoverflow.com/review/suggested-edits/2256353

Is it unacceptable to edit a question to better represent the real problem the OP was trying to solve, or did I just do a poor job at it?

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    @Mr.Disappointment What is the XY problem?
    – Rick Yorgason
    Commented Jun 5, 2013 at 10:23
  • I think this is an acceptable edit and that you did as good a job as possible (including the comment to your edit). This is somewhat hard to review, especially when reviewers are hunting for badges. Curious about how to handle this, so +1.
    – Marijn
    Commented Jun 5, 2013 at 10:38
  • The edit was correct. You were a victim of 'possible case of audit'. Since audits are generally those which have a (huge/obvious) change in titles of the posts ;)
    – hjpotter92
    Commented Jun 5, 2013 at 11:14

1 Answer 1

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Good point, as I see it the actual question discussed here is "Can we rewrite posts completely, given the author permission?"

Well, I would say "Yes" but still, we're talking about very major change in the post turning it into something else so many others won't agree to this.

So, what to do? Here are a few options I can think of:

  1. Go to chat with the post author and tell him/her in real time when you post the suggestion then he/she can approve it instanty.

  2. Suggest the edit like you did; in case it's rejected ask the author to edit taking what you wrote by linking to the suggested edit.

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    Are you suggesting my question had an XY problem? ;) FYI, option 2 is what I ended up doing.
    – Rick Yorgason
    Commented Jun 5, 2013 at 10:43

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