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@Nikita Rybak had a great idea, he posted it as answer.

As you know when you edit a question you are offered to fill in an Edit summary.

enter image description here

This is a brief description of what you've just done with the post.

Some people fill them out and some people don't, but as you know programmers are lazy* Vaguely related blog post by the site's co-founder to make this badge request insanely popular.

So, me being lazy and all (not the good lazy, the lazy lazy kind), find myself not filling it out most time, sometimes for the right reason and sometimes for the wrong ones.

That is why I suggest that this wonderful idea of explaining you corrections be properly motivated with a badge.

This will encourage people to explain what they've just done to the post.

Downers:

I do understand, that this may have it's problems, I've said it myself sometimes it's not necessary to fill out the summary, so this badge may encourage bad behaviors, like meaningless or too generic summaries constantly appearing.

If this is a concern you might use some restrictions to avoid this problems (in the top of my mind), limitations like, edited 80% of his summaries is enough for the badge should partially avoid this.

But if you think about it, every badge may have it's down-sides:

enter image description here

@Rocket If you are reading this, don't ever change it, it's hilarious!

Oh, and now, the name: I lost all my imagination in kindergarden. that is why I can't get past "Explainer" (Awful, I know). So, if your right brain didn't die, propose.

So what do you think about this? Do you think it's a good idea? Names for the badge?

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  • @downvoters, do you not like this idea o Nikita's either?
    – Trufa
    Jan 31, 2011 at 18:00

1 Answer 1

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As explained in the question you linked, in most cases (80%? 90%?) edit summary makes little sense. It's either formatting, or a typo.

We would probably want to encourage edit summaries for major changes in other people's posts, adding/removing some information, but I see absolutely no way to distinguish those from standard, run-of-the-mill edits.

IMHO, this could be a bronze badge for the first edit summary, just to make people aware of this feature. It just has too small value (none in most cases), to qualify for more.

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    I think maybe a bronze badge wouldn't hurt too much, and agree that it probably isn't necessary to go further. After all, edit summaries auto-fill basic data like deletion/addition of characters, tag changes, and all that stuff.
    – Grace Note StaffMod
    Jan 31, 2011 at 15:20
  • Point taken, I just thought it would be a good idea to encourage the use of this tool. I think your perpective is great, and agree with @Grace that a bronze badge could/should be enough to make users notice this tool and know what it's for.
    – Trufa
    Jan 31, 2011 at 16:04
  • +1 the bronze badge for first time filling the summary is something I would've suggested as well. :)
    – Shadow The Spring Wizard
    Jan 31, 2011 at 16:17
  • I wont accept your answer quite yet, but note that I have edited my question because your suggestion is much more sane an viable than mine. Let's see where it goes from now.
    – Trufa
    Jan 31, 2011 at 19:40

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