10

While reviewing edits, there are times when you come across an edit that doesn't do exactly the right thing, but is still of value. An example would be when someone has found a broken link, but puts a strike through it instead of making a truly useful edit. So you fix the link (through http://archive.org) that wouldn't have been found otherwise. But it only makes sense to accept and improve this if the editor is notified of the fact that his edit was accepted without editing, as otherwise you would be blindly rewarding incorrect behavior. So:

When someone makes an edit that is improved by a reviewer is he or she notified of the fact that the edit was improved?

6
  • I guess this is one reason StackExchange is not a wiki; on a wiki no specific user owns a post, so everyone can watch every page equally. (Observability requirement of the wiki design principles.)
    – Nemo
    Commented Jul 20, 2015 at 15:27
  • You can see from the +2 rep, right? Commented Jul 20, 2015 at 15:40
  • @UnicornsAreVeryVeryYummy No, you can't. The fact you get +2 reputation tells you that your edit was accepted. That's the same for edits that were just accepted and edits that were accepted and improved. What I want to know is specifically about being notified that your edit was improved.
    – Jasper
    Commented Jul 20, 2015 at 15:59
  • I wonder how popular a feature-request this might make; though sometimes they're surprisingly not very well-received for some obscure reason.
    – M.A.R.
    Commented Jul 20, 2015 at 20:34
  • Good point. I came across this post searching for "Fixed body forgot title" as I'm noticing that I have recently become so engrossed in fixing the main body of the question, and chasing up links that I overlooked a particularly bad title. My edit was subsequently accepted, and improved upon, but then, when I checked the subsequent edit, I see that the subsequent reviewer also forgot to fix the title, and so I had to (rather embarrassingly) submit a further edit. This has happened to me more than once, and I have noticed other experienced editors committing the same oversight. Commented Jan 1, 2016 at 18:20
  • (+1) I agree with you. I frequently made edit suggestions as a <2k user, and never came to know that some were approved, while some got the "Improve edit" treatment. As a new user, I wish I would be notified whenever I missed something in my suggested edits, so I could make them more useful in the future, and avoid forcing the +2k user to continually improve my edits. Commented Feb 16, 2018 at 4:17

2 Answers 2

11

No, the editor is not notified if the question is improved.

If the editor wants to know, he can easily go to his/her profile. click on 'all actions' and go to the 'suggestions' tab, where he can find his edit and see what happened to it.

Honestly, I don't think there should be a notification if someone's edit is improved - because his original edit was still useful - you just made it more useful. If you think the user was wrong, reject it - they will be notified if they have too many rejected edits.

1
  • 1
    Though I disagree with your reasoning (the fact that the edit was useful, does not mean that in a similar situation a similar edit should be made), but that doesn't make this any less of an answer. I guess I'll adjust my reviewing habits based on this...
    – Jasper
    Commented Jul 20, 2015 at 14:29
7

When someone makes an edit that is improved by a reviewer is he or she notified of the fact that the edit was improved?

The only notification a user sees is a +2 in the Achievements at the top bar next to Inbox entry (provided that the user didn't down-vote more than two times before the edit was approved, in which case the user many times don't get to see such +2 unless s/he tap that icon).

[It] only makes sense to accept and improve this if the editor is notified of the fact that his edit was accepted without editing, as otherwise you would be blindly rewarding incorrect behavior.

The phase of learning is dependent on the curiosity and willingness of the editor to learn and improve himself from his own actions and its reflections. Enough with the riddle, the point is that the user can always tap that +2 and click on the entry (be it Question/Answer) to see who approved it or what exactly happened to the edit.

I made more than a hundred of suggested edits before reaching 2k+ on Android Enthusiasts, and it never ever happened that I forgot to check who reviewed my edit and were there any mistakes left that were corrected. Furthermore, during that period I always kept my eyes on the Active tab and always visited most of the changes taking place on the posts, including the ones I suggested the edit with. In that way, I was always aware of my scope of improvement.

That said, I wish that an option for informing the user with a custom message should be there for the reviewers when improving an edit, thereby agreeing with you. My reason to agree is, there are times when the edit is close to be superfluous, like correcting grammar/typos in the whole body (a question with one paragraph) but missing the first line as well as the vague title, something that shouldn't be missed by anyone. But you can't really reject that edit because it is helping in readability for the rest of the body.

Some other times, you see edits which fixed the links which were obsolete or incorrect, but avoided the dire need of formatting of the post. Again, there is no point in rejecting such edits either because they are helpful. And there are many more cases that one can mention here.

It is at least certain to me that if the user isn't curious or willing to improve rather swiftly s/he possibly won't come to know what were the critical things left in that edit and should be fixed from then on in next edits. The Suggestions tab is embedded under Activity -> all actions, something I don't find very helpful when learning of a user is concerned. I came to know about this location only through a question on a Meta site, after gaining 500 points!

But I still try few things. Whenever I improve an edit I always leave a comment in the revision like "made corrections missed by the last editor", "fixed XYZ left by last editor", so that at least somebody else might learn something if not the intended user.

1
  • Interesting perspective. I do think there are two different situations possible: someone that has a lot of experience on another SE site (like you) and one that does not.
    – Jasper
    Commented Jul 24, 2015 at 8:23

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .