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I have recently received the following message:

Too many edits

You have already edited 5 of your own posts today (not including very recent posts). Further edits are not allowed until tomorrow.

Please contact a moderator if you require assistance.

I was trying to edit my old posts refining them by making some formatting and putting some titles to my references URLs. Suddenly, I've got blocked from doing more editing. Even on my new answers!

Why are you applying such constraint? And what assistance could I require from the moderators in such a case?

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  • @Goran - it should give you free reign on new answers... how "new" is "new" here?
    – Marc Gravell
    May 13, 2011 at 10:46
  • did you do your old posts from the same account as you are tyring to do the edits from
    – Ian Ringrose
    May 13, 2011 at 10:56
  • @Arjan: Marc question is directed to Goran ..
    – Akram Shahda
    May 13, 2011 at 11:23
  • @Ian: Sure, why then do you think I've got the message ??
    – Akram Shahda
    May 13, 2011 at 11:23
  • Then I will ask you: @Akram, how "new" is "new" here? ;-)
    – Arjan
    May 13, 2011 at 11:24
  • @Arjan: An answer that I posted less than an hour ago for example! What do you think Arjan? My "new" answer is my last posted one which happens to be posted 1 year ago :)
    – Akram Shahda
    May 13, 2011 at 11:30
  • 1
    @Akrim - yes, that'll be fixed next deploy
    – Marc Gravell
    May 13, 2011 at 12:41

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
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That code was (correctly) not counting recent (today/yesterday) posts in the "how many have you edited", but was not (and incorrectly) applying that to the current post.

This is fixed in the code now, pending deployment.

This sanity check avoids a few scenarios:

  • front-page spamming
  • hijacked account vandalism
  • rage-quit vandalism

We don't have any objection to improving posts, and yes: it is meant to have an amnesty on anything recent (so you can improve your recent answers).

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6
  • So, the 'amnesty' is based the post age and not post type. Sounds ok to me. Incidentally, I think that this also helps with the edit vampires problem.
    – Goran Jovic
    May 13, 2011 at 11:38
  • @Goran - we don't distinguish between questions/answers, if that is what you mean. At least, not for this.
    – Marc Gravell
    May 13, 2011 at 11:45
  • 3
    do you think we should increase the number to 7 or perhaps 8? 5 is amazingly low, as much as its effective in preventing vandalism, its just as effective in creating annoyance to a good-intended user
    – Pacerier
    Jun 11, 2011 at 19:32
  • 1
    @Pacerier - we could perhaps raise it a little, but...
    – Marc Gravell
    Jun 11, 2011 at 21:59
  • 2
    Gitolite V3 just got released (sitaramc.github.com/gitolite/g3why.html) and I have 51 of my ansswers to update (stackoverflow.com/search?q=%5Bgitolite%5D+user%3A6309). Are you seriously telling me I won't be able to do so more than 5 questions a day??? Could a 200K+ rep entitle me to bypass that limitation?
    – VonC
    Apr 18, 2012 at 12:00
  • @MarcGravell how about it adding it to the FAQs? I stumbled upon the same issue, even though I have gone through the entire FAQ. And it so happened that I ended up editing my unaccepted answers, whereas, if I was made aware in advance, I would have edited the accepted ones on priority, as they attract more attention in the long term.
    – Jugal Thakkar
    Aug 11, 2012 at 8:00
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This is probably done so you don't game the system. Every time you edit your own post, it shoots up to the top of the questions list. This is unfair, because it means that newer questions get bumped down the list.

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5
  • That, and I can imagine it's also a measure against compromised accounts? (If true, then maybe the captchas are no longer required...? Ah, apparently the error message does not apply to recent posts.)
    – Arjan
    May 13, 2011 at 10:15
  • Fair enough. But, does that require blocking me from editting my newly added answers as well ??
    – Akram Shahda
    May 13, 2011 at 10:17
  • @Akram: A good point. It should apply only to the questions.
    – Goran Jovic
    May 13, 2011 at 10:28
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    @AkramShahda: indeed, maybe it's a bit excessive.
    – alex
    May 13, 2011 at 10:31
  • is this still correct?
    – Mehdi Charife
    Sep 17 at 17:10
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The limit is there to prevent post vandalism where a user systematically edits all their posts in a flurry of destruction. See User wildly erasing all his posts continuously even after we rollback for an example.

There's also a similar restriction on how many old posts you can delete in a day: Slight modification to the "suspected deletion vandalism" algorithm.

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1
  • Hmm, you'd think 10 would be enough for that, and giving warning would surely be wise too?
    – SamB
    May 16, 2011 at 17:28

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