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I am allowed to suggest an edit by re-tagging only, but I am not allowed to re-tag and make a small change of less than 6 characters in the same edit. (For example correcting a small code format error).

This seems unreasonable to me as 1 tag change + 1 format change is a more substantial change than just 1 tag change.

I propose to allow minor changes in suggested edits if tags are modified at the same time.

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    Furthermore, the Suggested Edits queue seems almost empty most of the time and I bet there are lots of people who would like an Editor badge...
    – palacsint
    Jan 14, 2014 at 19:32

3 Answers 3

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Editing the tags by itself is already enough to make an edit qualify for review. Refusing <6 character edits to the body on a tag edit makes no sense.

The whole point of blocking too minor edits is to prevent using up reviewing resources on edits which are not important. Because a question's title and tags are important, an edit to either already clears the bar for being "review worthy". The system allows such edits through without question.

For this very reason, <6 character edits to the body of a post are allowed when the title is edited; see here. In a lot of cases, a question's tags can be as important as the title, if not more so. The same should apply in the case of tags.

Also, allowing encouraging editors to fix everything in a post is a much better idea than to suggest that tag edits and body edits should be done separately. Furthermore, enforcing the character limit when a user is editing a post already will encourage unnecessary changes to the body, just to get around it.

Finally, implementing this would fix this bug, in which tag-only edits to certain specific posts are disallowed due to the system seeing small body edits that weren't actually made by the editor.

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  • This can be gamed, however. Users can just make a random tag change just to allow a small edit to go through. (However, this does have one major positive: occasionally, the system "sees" small body edits that aren't actually there in the Markdown, so this will fix that problem.) Jul 19, 2019 at 16:21
  • @SonictheAnonymousWizHog if the reviewer is awake, random tag changes won't get through. Anyway, any change to the title already makes it possible for minor edits to go to review. This will not make a loophole that wasn't there already.
    – hat
    Jul 19, 2019 at 16:47
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    Ah, good point. Since the title loophole already exists and isn't being abused (and isn't advertised anywhere, I never found out about it until now), I don't see an issue with this. If you don't mind, I've added another pro-point towards implementing this feature. Jul 20, 2019 at 9:54
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It is not an addition so these two edits, of two totally different types, cannot be added together.

It is important for questions to be tagged properly, but changing the tag should't give you the right to make a minor edit.

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    Tag only edits already go to the review queue, and while they are very often "too minor", many get approved anyway.
    – Servy
    Jan 13, 2014 at 17:40
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    That's silly. Making a minor edit isn't a “right”. The purpose of the 6-character minimum is to avoid wasting reviewers' time, but if the edit is already there because of the tags, there's no point in restricting body changes. Jan 13, 2014 at 19:57
  • The whole point of blocking small edits is to make sure they're worthwhile. A tag edit automatically makes it worthwhile. If you're going to suggest an edit, you may as well be able to fix everything wrong with the post. Jan 9, 2019 at 15:21
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I disagree with this.

Then edits like this one would go through AOK... which is wrong.

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    That edit edits 6 chars, so can already go through.
    – Servy
    Jan 13, 2014 at 17:40
  • Haha it would not let me suggest it without the 6 chars :-P but it is the general idea ;-) @Servy
    – qwertynl
    Jan 13, 2014 at 17:40
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    @NickStauner Fixed. You only need to change the stackoverflow to stackexchange due to the migration.
    – Servy
    May 13, 2014 at 19:55
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    the purpose of the 6-character limit is not to block blatant spam. It's to catch too minor edits. This one is not too minor. It's an offensive piece of vandalism. May 13, 2014 at 20:28

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