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Related, but subtly different, proposals (they were created before the edit for the masses changes):

StackOverflow guidelines encourage users to correct typos, and I often do. However a new feature has now sprang up, which allow users who do not have sufficient reputation to edit on their own to propose an edit and have it reviewed. In order not to be spammy (I guess) there is also a restriction: they must at least edit 6 characters in the post.

This, however, prevent the correction of simple typography/spelling errors by those same low-reputation users (which I am on other stack exchange sites)... and the simple way to get around this is to pad the questions with whitespaces.

Now, this work-around is fair and all... but really unsatisfying: if the goal of the 6 characters limit is to prevent minor editions, then it fails utterly because of this "whitespace" bug.

My proposal is therefore:

Creating a new threshold for minor-edits of posts

The current edit treshold is at 2000 points; minor edits (those under that 6 characters count) could be allowed from as low as 500 points.

  • This would reduce the "noise" in the edits to approve.
  • This would remove this annoying "warning" for users who only wish to improve things

Of course the user whose post has been edited should be notified as for a "regular" edit (unless it's community wiki ?)

I have no strong opinion as to bumping those minorly edited posts.

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Two problems I see with this proposal:

  1. Having a lower reputation threshold for minor edits seems to defeat the idea of the threshold. If I don't have the rep to make a major edit, I can get away by doing several edits 6 characters at a time.

  2. The number of characters is a quite poor metric of a "trivial" edit. I could still replace a picture in the post, modify a link, change a code block. I could simply remove the word not which I believe doesn't belong in the post, completely reversing its meaning.

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In regards to your last sentence:

I have no strong opinion as to bumping those minorly edited posts.

I do, and it is don't bump those minorly edited posts.

There are a few other meta-discussions about users who go around suggesting numerous tiny spelling-corrections. The usual response is that we shouldn't approve such edits. I don't think anybody would have a problem with those little edits though if they didn't bump the post and gave no rep.

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