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I recently made the same edit request twice because there was no obvious feedback about the first edit request being rejected.

I thought the edit didn't 'take' just because there had been a problem with the website or my browser.

It is sad to see that though the problem of low visibility of rejected edits was brought up over a year ago, feedback on edit requests is still buried.
Decision on rejected edits should be displayed as a notification to the editor

If we can't make sure people get feedback on requested edits (if we want to avoid in-your-face negative comments: see here), can we at least have the system detect when a user makes repeated attempts to edit another user's post (question or answer)?

That is a pretty good indicator of the editor being clueless (as I was) about how tucked-away feedback is, and that the editor does not really mean to request the edit multiple times.

This feature could be implemented either

  • with automation,
  • by asking reviewers to take a peek at a user's last couple of edit requests if about to reject one,

or some combination of the two.

(I am not going to sweat my inflated number of rejected edits (also due to not knowing an earlier edit of another item had been rejected. I discovered all of the rejections, all for the same reason which I now understand, much later when exploring my profile page), but I would like to save future users from this issue.)

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    I think something like this is long overdue. The "people don't like being told they are doing it wrong" idea fails horribly for people who, like you, are genuinely interested in learning what they've done wrong and how to get it right next time.
    – yannis
    Commented Jun 17, 2013 at 0:45
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    As long as it's worded positively and constructively, this sounds like a good idea. In short, we should explain not why the edit was rejected but what can be done to make sure the edit is good.
    – jmort253
    Commented Jun 17, 2013 at 0:58
  • Half of the time a user's ego wouldn't even be at stake at all. All the notification would say is something like "You have already submitted an edit request for this question/answer. It is currently awaiting review. Are you sure you want to submit this request as well?" if the review is still underway. The message for the case where the previous request was rejected is the only one where you might want to think hard about how to be nice about it, I would say.
    – A.M.
    Commented Jun 17, 2013 at 1:12
  • By the way, it is quite possible that I submitted the second edit before the first one had been rejected.
    – A.M.
    Commented Jun 17, 2013 at 1:13
  • @A.M.: But wouldn't that replace the first suggested edit?
    – Qantas 94 Heavy
    Commented Jun 17, 2013 at 5:29
  • @Qantas 94 Heavy, that is an excellent question...that I am completely unfit to answer. ;) I will definitely watch this space in case someone does answer it, though (and if I stumble into the answer I will post it). I could just do an experiment and suggest two edits in a row on something right now, but I don't want to artificially inflate my rejection stats even more.
    – A.M.
    Commented Jun 17, 2013 at 13:03

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