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I noticed when I went to a different Stack Exchange site where I had lower reputation, I could not see the comments while editing my question. This is especially frustrating when a user makes a comment of how I can improve my question, but I have to go back and forth between the edit page and the main page.

I found there was a question about this already: Show comments when editing answers and I realized that inline-editing was a feature for 2k+ rep users only.

The answer in the question references the blog post and it mentions in there:

We've only opened up inline editing to editors (users with 2,000+ reputation) for now, but we might extend it to all users eventually. And if you prefer the old editing page for whatever reason, just hold down ctrl when clicking on edit to get it.

So just wondering, does Stack Exchange plan on extending the inline editor to all users eventually? What are the reasons for hiding this inline-editing feature only to users with 2,000 rep? If anything, I think we should make it easier for new users to be able to fix their questions based on comments we provide for them.

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  • The reason for the dedicated page is this. Those tips don't appear for inline editing.
    – Shadow Wizard Is Sad And Angry
    Feb 23, 2016 at 6:56
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    @ShadowWizard: ...although there's no obvious reason why they couldn't be made to appear for inline editing, too (maybe above the edit box rather than in the sidebar, but that would arguably be better anyway).
    – Ilmari Karonen
    Feb 23, 2016 at 12:57
  • @Ilmari of course, but it requires some time and efforts. :)
    – Shadow Wizard Is Sad And Angry
    Feb 23, 2016 at 13:01
  • Yes, in roughly the same amount of time it will take you to earn, say, 957 rep points, as of the time of this comment.
    – user1228
    Feb 23, 2016 at 13:55
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    I don't think the issue is being able to gain the feature one day or that there is an edit page for a reason. The issue is that we try to encourage users to comment on people's questions and answers so they might be able to improve it (especially important for new users) and yet we make the experience for it subpar when a solution for it exists. If the edit page is necessary, that's fine, but there should be a way to see people's comments on that page.
    – aug
    Feb 23, 2016 at 17:31
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    A quick update regarding your previous comment: a recent request to show <2k users comments on their posts when editing has been marked as under review.
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    May 25, 2020 at 6:22
  • ...and that request was just marked completed today, though such users are still forced to use the editor page (on which comments are now shown), and are still locked out of the inline editor proper.
    – Sonic the Anonymous Hedgehog
    Feb 12, 2021 at 1:23

1 Answer 1

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Just today, SE rolled out a change where comments are now shown on the separate editor page, which resolves most of the concerns you pointed out in the question, as <2k users can now see comments on the post they're editing.

However, I still think it's a good idea to roll out the inline editor to users with <2k rep, as while such users can view comments on the specific post, they still cannot view (other) answers on the same page, or the comments on other posts on the same page. (They can view the question body when editing an answer, but that's it.)

An important case where this is relevant is in case someone provides an answer that attempts to answer the question but leaves a part behind (i.e. "It seems the answer is [x], but without [y] piece of info, I can't be sure"; the official advice given to <50 rep users who would otherwise have to comment says to leave such answers): since the user can't see the answer that asks for such info at the same time, they'd have to flip back and forth as they did before with comments.

Another case is with multiple community wiki answers to a single post: when editing an answer, to, say, this Super User post, a <2k user can't see the other answers, and so may add in redundant text that is already covered in another answer.

Even after that change was rolled out, it's still important to know if SE plans to roll out inline editing to <2k users.

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