Does the OP have the right to undo edits?

Question

I just saw the following comment:

As the original author, you always have first dibs at undoing any edits. Glad you approve though :-) – SomeMod♦

Is this right? This suggests that the OP is always in the right in an edit war, and that confuses me...

Answer 1

Yes and no, or "yes, to some extent".

Cases when I do agree with that statement:

1. Radical change to the post, e.g. changing the whole idea behind it.
2. Minor and unimportant syntax changes, e.g. changing "color" to "colour".
3. Trying to improve with own ideas of the editor, with which OP disagree. Kind of like #1 above.

In such cases, I believe OP has the right to edit, and I'll support it.

Cases when I disagree with the statement:

1. Editor removes "thanks", "hi", etc.
2. Editor improves formatting in the post.
3. Editor retagging properly.

In all above cases, and more (any truly valid edit), I would fight the OP for the sake of keeping the place clean and organized. Did it more than once, will do it again.

Answer 2

In most cases, the answer would be a yes.

If a user is making a question noticeably worse (or emptying the text, or some such thing) by rolling back edits that are made to a post, then I would flag the post for moderator attention, as they have abilities to lock post edits as they see fit.

If it's a small thing that doesn't make the meaning more unclear or whatnot, I would probably leave it, as it isn't as big of a deal.