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I'm a bit unhappy with the way people are reviewing edit suggestions. It seems more automated than it really should be.

Examples:

The above edits are small in the body of the question, but they are of great qualification by the added tags, as it's a great help to organization of the questions to add tags to questions only tagged sql, for example.

What am I missing?

Update:

Becoming despondent too. Seems that small grammar errors is more important than question resolution or classification. This is a community, some native speak English, they can edit the grammar later, but some can't help the user to get an answer.

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8
  • I wouldn't have edited that tag unless you had proof that different sites are visible on the internet to different operating systems. There's absolutely no reason to think that Windows XP hides parts of the internet.
    – dcaswell
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:30
  • @user814064 that's related to the question not to the answer. If is that I would change Windows XP Browsers, but they will be rejected from changing "to much"
    – Diego C Nascimento
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:33
  • Heh. The tag edit of question two was, in a sense, not too minor. The question specifically mentions MSSQL, but has attracted two Oracle style answers. But the question still is at -4, so for the edit to be worth your time you'd have to improve the question enough to revert that.
    – user213634
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:42
  • The second edit is not what I would call good grammar and so is no better than what was there. It needs a verb at least
    – mmmmmm
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:52
  • @Anders UP yes you get it right, its just about good classification of the questions. The question about SQL have down-votes by "no research" so it will be difficult to revert. Seems small grammar errors are why they are rejected (contrary to some reviews that know much here are not the best at English, as its not our primary language, and correct just a word) but ok, next time I skip these.
    – Diego C Nascimento
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:53
  • 1
    The “editing grammar later” part is great, and I will do that. But if you think you don’t know English that well, it might be best to just avoid editing grammar altogether — it can give people an incentive to improve a post when they don’t have to start from an unnecessarily worse base (because that’s what improving does by default).
    – Ry- Mod
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 22:53
  • @minitech - although in that case your edits might tend to be rejected as too minor as people see obvious to a native speaker grammar errors unfixed.
    – mmmmmm
    Commented Sep 17, 2013 at 9:46
  • @minitech thanks, you are right, but I see all the time "How to", and I wanted to get the question not at a first user perspective. But I'm putting more attention to correcting/or not grammar when I'm unsure.
    – Diego C Nascimento
    Commented Sep 17, 2013 at 18:25

4 Answers 4

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12

I think the question you raise is important, as I've also found that edit reviews are far from consistent.

However, for your two examples I think that you are wasting your time in editing them.

Question one:

Why Windows XP browsers couldn't find my apache server with public IP, but in localhost it's working fine! for more please see the Picture

I would flag it for hold/close and expect it to be deleted anyway. It has no initial effort and the only one who could really improve it would be the OP.

Question two:

How to calculate the number of days between dates as detailed below using MSSQL

Hmm. If this is not a duplicate, I'd be very surprised - and if it isn't, the question shows no real effort, no attempts from the OP to solve it himself, so I'd guess this would be a candidate for closure/deletion as well.

So in my opionion your edits seem to fail because they do not lift the posts above a level where they will be closed and deleted anyway. Make your time count and spend it on editing posts that are actually worth it instead.

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  • 1
    true Anders, I'm a bit "no flag" that type of questions to close, as I try to help new users that don't know the community way.
    – Diego C Nascimento
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:30
  • 6
    Yes, this is an important point: don't bother polishing turds. Flag instead.
    – jscs
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:31
  • @DiegoCNascimento And yet it's not really possible for you to fix the question enough for them to be appropriate. You can help a bit, but only so much. At the very least you should be voting/flagging to close in addition to editing, in a case where the post should still be closed even after the edit.
    – Servy
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:40
  • @Servy that's what this answer say, why comment? Anyway by the edits on this post, you could see how things work here. Some are just formating that according to some posts on meta should be rejected.
    – Diego C Nascimento
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:42
  • @DiegoCNascimento Yes, I know. I agree with the poster in that regard. I was addressing your comment in which you said you're still trying to help the users despite knowing this.
    – Servy
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:43
  • @DiegoCNascimento I understand that you don't want to flag, but prefer to help in a more gentle/non-excluding way - but in this case commenting is better, especially for question one. Explain to the user why he can expect to see downvotes, highlight some improvements he can make (ie. he should include code, screenshot) and see if he does it. For the second, if you flag as a duplicate, the system automatically inserts a comment to that effect.
    – user213634
    Commented Sep 17, 2013 at 8:23
14

You fixed just one or two really small issues, and left other major issues with the posts.

When you go to edit a post you should make an effort to fix all of the problems with the post that you can. You should also make sure that your edits are substantive. Just adding one or two tags, unless they are essentially for visibility to the question (i.e. a primary language tag) are not major edits (by themselves).

Both of your edits also introduce grammar problems into the post, so they could be rejected for that reason instead, as well.

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7
  • @DiegoCNascimento I didn't say that these tags were inappropriate, merely that, in this case, they aren't essential for the question; they're tangential tags, not "primary" tags.
    – Servy
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:20
  • 1
    If it introduces grammar problems the review could do its job and help by editing, or put the correct reject subject. This has occurred sometimes with good reviews.
    – Diego C Nascimento
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:25
  • 5
    @DiegoCNascimento The reviewers are not obligated to fix your edit. If it were me, and I chose to improve the edit, I would almost certainly still reject it as it is still minor, and such a large portion of your edit is problematic. If you're suggesting an edit and the reviewer needs to put more time into fixing the post than you do then the edit should be rejected. A good edit should consume very little time on the part of the reviewer, even if a minor improvement needs to be made.
    – Servy
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:27
  • I said the "good ones", users are not even obligated to review. But then, its good to have a reject subject related to that.
    – Diego C Nascimento
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:38
  • @DiegoCNascimento What? Did you mean "improve" rather than "review"? All of your edits will be reviews until you hit 2k rep. If you have other edits that you think are better examples then these then by all means link them here.
    – Servy
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:44
  • @DiegoCNascimento Both rejection reasons are appropriate, for reasons I stated. The reviewers picked one. The other might have been a bit better, but the one that they chose is not wrong. Your edit simply meets multiple rejection criteria.
    – Servy
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:44
  • @Servy I have an example for you, as I write in my answer, I rarely bother with edits, but tried again today. Would you have approved this: stackoverflow.com/review/suggested-edits/2936370 (while editing another user came along and did the formatting, which I then decided not to change) so I stuck with grammar and wording. Would you have accepted or rejected this edit?
    – user213634
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:47
4

If there are other things that need to be taken care of in a post, please take care of everything possible. Tag edits are extremely important, you are correct, but the title on the first question was a mess, you added a Windows 7 tag that (from the comments below) depends on the image to understand, and, as as Servy has pointed out, is tangential to the question anyway. You could have incorporated the image so someone else didn't have to do that separately and so your retagging motivation was clear.

Grab all that you can to maximize the time that you spend editing. I'm sure everyone will appreciate it!

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4
  • Yes, I think they are very important for question visibility, like sql date. If you click on the picture the user send, you know why is Windows 7 tag included.
    – Diego C Nascimento
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:20
  • @DiegoCNascimento Well, if you had edited it in, it would be even more evident ;)
    – jonsca
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:21
  • true, but the user question is unclear, I asked it to better it. Till it better (some hours) adding the tags would only help.
    – Diego C Nascimento
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:23
  • 2
    @DiegoCNascimento So why not "better" it all the way, then. Were you really that pressed for time?
    – jonsca
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:25
-1

Tag edits should never be categorized as too minor if they are appropriate tags for the question.

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16
  • 2
    Neither of these edits were tag-only. The second actually made the post worse.
    – jscs
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:28
  • @Josh Caswell !? made the post worse why!?
    – Diego C Nascimento
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:29
  • 8
    @DiegoCNascimento Because both of the edits turn grammatically correct sentences into grammatically incorrect sentences.
    – Servy
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:29
  • Just for the sake of curiosity, as English is not my primary language. "How to calculate the number of days" is grammatically incorrect?
    – Diego C Nascimento
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:35
  • 1
    @DiegoCNascimento "How can I..." or "How do I..." not "How to..."
    – apaul
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:43
  • 1
    @DiegoCNascimento also "Why Windows XP browsers couldn't find my..." doesn't read well, try "Why can't Windows XP browsers find my..."
    – apaul
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:47
  • @apaul34208 well by this point of view the question does not make sense, there's no Windows XP browsers, but some edits I doing that way are reject to being "modified the user question intention". So I didn't change it.
    – Diego C Nascimento
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:49
  • @DiegoCNascimento That's another thing worth thinking about. Don't polish turds.
    – apaul
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:52
  • @DiegoCNascimento If you have grammar or English language questions in the future you may want to checkout: english.stackexchange.com
    – apaul
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:57
  • @apaul34208 you should be kidding
    – Diego C Nascimento
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 20:57
  • @DiegoCNascimento Just trying to point out that some posts may not be worth salvaging. If the post won't make sense even after a good edit you may be better off just flagging or voting to close.
    – apaul
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 21:01
  • @apaul34208 I'm talking about the english
    – Diego C Nascimento
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 21:07
  • 1
    @Lance Not true at all. Tags only categorize things. But what's the point of categorizing a crappy question that doesn't belong on the site? That's like literally taking a pile of dung and throwing it in the filing cabinet to see people's reactions when they open it looking for something else...
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 21:22
  • @animuson why then the question is being answered instead of being closed? better to show a bad question to a small set of users instead of all SQL community.
    – Diego C Nascimento
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 21:26
  • @Diego The first one is closed.
    – animuson StaffMod
    Commented Sep 16, 2013 at 21:29

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