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I have been editing some questions and answers lately. Suddenly, I wanted to edit a question and this message shows up:

Too many of your edits were rejected, try again in 7 days.

What? Seven days!? Why? Isn't that a bit exaggerated?

How about this message:

You have had 3 edits rejected today; please try again tomorrow.

Wouldn't that be better?

I understand that it is not better because there are so many users that do edits, which makes it hard to handle.

But still, 7 days is a long period.

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  • 9
    I wish a massage would show up after I had been answering questions all day!
    – Rick Sladkey
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 6:06
  • 5
    @Rick Did you mean massage, or message?
    – avpaderno
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 6:25
  • @kiamlaluno: Read the post carefully: "I wanted to edit a question and this massage shows up..!!"
    – Rick Sladkey
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 6:35
  • @Rick Oh, I see! I agree; a massage would be better than a message.
    – avpaderno
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 6:39
  • Edited .. changed ..^_^
    – jjj
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 6:40
  • 5
    Recently rejected suggestions by jjj: stackoverflow.com/suggested-edits/45375 stackoverflow.com/suggested-edits/45372 stackoverflow.com/suggested-edits/45371
    – badp
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 7:25
  • 4
    Sorry for being harsh, but the fact is that your English is not very good, and in particular your spelling. You should work on improving that, which will take much longer than 7 days.
    – starblue
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 7:35
  • @starblue I am ..and it is .. @badp's I notes that most of the ignored questions the ignored questions got answers after editing even if it is a littel change ..
    – jjj
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 7:49
  • @badp's sockpuppet ..stackoverflow.com/suggested-edits/45371 ..Actually I edited this question to put the code sample , adding new tags and make a few changes .. but there was somebody editing it at the same time .. and he deleted most of the code ..
    – jjj
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 8:34
  • @jjj I'm not commenting on, or criticizing your edits; I'm merely linking them so that people can actually talk about your edits, and point out what's wrong with them. Just trying to help here :)
    – badp
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 8:38
  • Everytime I see jjj in a comment I think someone is trying to laugh without success :/
    – Oscar Mederos
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 9:11
  • 1
    I know it is hard, if you (like me) are not a native english speaker, but try to write a little better. At least in your About me box.stackoverflow.com/users/226149/jjj
    – Oscar Mederos
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 9:14
  • @badp's sockpuppet .. Ok thanks .. @Oscar Mederos..ya sometimes ^_^.. My about me box .. what is wrong with it ?! .. correct me if I am mistaken
    – jjj
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 10:16
  • @jjj: One point is that there are a few typos that you could correct.
    – Hendrik Vogt
    Commented May 16, 2011 at 11:20

4 Answers 4

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The reason is because rejected edits are very expensive. The original bad post was bad before you started and its still bad after the rejected edit. The difference is that the valuable time of a trusted person was required to decide not to use it.

Intelligent people can disagree about edits but at some point the trusted person loses confidence in the person they've delegated the work to and says "look, it would be faster for me to do it all myself than for me to try to let you help me and still have to correct your work."

So if you want to continue editing at all, the safest approach is to wait a week, and then make more conservative edits so that more of your edits are accepted.

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  • 3
    This is the correct answer. The punishment is because you've improved nothing while wasting the time of two trusted community members to reject your edits. Waffles's answer here agrees with you.
    – Cody Gray
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 6:37
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    You all talking about .."why they reject your edits" .. and I am talking about the period ..!
    – jjj
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 6:47
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    @jjj: No, we're not talking about why they reject them. We're talking about why the ban is so long. Because you've improved nothing and cost the time of two trusted community users. That time is not free; we could be contributing in other ways to the community, rather than rejecting your edits. It's like putting users in the "penalty box" who have wasted time on the site in other ways. We don't take users with repeatedly bad behavior lightly, and for good reason.
    – Cody Gray
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 6:50
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    @jjj: Read my first sentence: expensive. Big offense, big penalty. Rejected edits are a big offense because they are so costly. You must wait a long time because it is a big offense. If you are willing to wait, then you can start thinking "Why did they reject my edits?"
    – Rick Sladkey
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 7:05
  • very expensive..?! .. I am not sure that I understood you .. do they pay for every edit.?!
    – jjj
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 7:09
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    @jjj: Expensive like an expensive function call: it costs resources. Those hi-rep people reviewing edits are obviously super busy and could be doing other things. Therefore their time is valuable.
    – Rick Sladkey
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 7:23
  • 1
    Ok . understood...
    – jjj
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 7:27
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Because they think you cannot fix your mistakes with one day.

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  • I am not editing my own questions & answers .. I am trying to fix others mistakes (questions & answers).
    – jjj
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 6:35
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    @jjj, rejecting a fix mean they think you are wrong, which they assume it's a mistake
    – YOU
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 6:37
  • I am not complaining about rejecting .. I am saying that 7 days is a long period..!
    – jjj
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 6:42
  • @jjj, tomorrow is one day or less, isn't it? They don't want you to try same thing on next day, that's a reason.
    – YOU
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 6:44
  • @jjj If you would be editing your own questions, then your edits would not be reviewed. If your edits are rejected, it's clear you are editing questions asked from other users, which are not CW (for which you need a reputation higher than 100, to edit them).
    – avpaderno
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 6:45
  • Tomorrow can be 5 minutes later, if you are awake around midnight UTC.
    – avpaderno
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 6:46
  • or 0 seconds later you mean? @kia
    – YOU
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 6:47
  • @YOU ...it has been 3 days and stil tells me ,"Too many of your edits were rejected, try again in 7 days." ..!!
    – jjj
    Commented May 16, 2011 at 9:07
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Here's the team conversation as I imagine it.

Jeff: We have to stop these people who don't know how to edit. They're wasting people's time and just making things worse.

SO Team member: Ok, how about we give them a nasty message and don't let them edit for an hour. It will get the message across and there shouldn't be many complaints.

Jeff: A hour? Are you kidding? It's not possible for them to change, we should ban them forever.

SO Team member: Right. An hour's too short, but forever seems like a long time. After all, it probably took you a few years to learn to speak and write English. I mean if we look at your third grade homework, it's likely that we wouldn't allow you to post on SO at all. How about we give them a day to think about it instead of an hour? I think people will think that's reasonable and won't bitch about it too much.

Jeff: I don't know. A day wouldn't make much difference to a 10-year old and I don't think it would make much difference here either. They'd just be right back at it. It needs to be at least a month.

SO Team member: Wow, a month? That's pretty harsh. That's worse than the initial term in the penalty box. How about a week? That's long enough to give them pause to consider their ways. Maybe no one will complain if it's only a week. I mean they should be getting the hint that something is wrong when they have so many rejected edits.

Jeff: Ok. I suppose it's possible that if someone doesn't edit for a week they might forget how to do it. I'd still prefer a month, but we'll try a week and see if it works. You know you're going to get people complaining about it, though. That might be almost as annoying as the rejected edits. Maybe we could get the folks at http://english.stackexchange.com to do the editing for us instead...nah, they'd just screw up the code. Let's go with a week.

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    Week is good .. week is fine ..!!.. Jeff has a mistake Jeff: A hour? ...;)
    – jjj
    Commented May 16, 2011 at 8:04
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If many of your edits were rejected, it probably means that you didn't understand in which cases you should edit a question/answer or what you should edit.
As the number of rejected edits is probably higher than 3, allowing to continue editing the day after doesn't seem enough; that could mean that I have enough rejected edits, and still be able to continue to edit questions 5 minutes later.

One week is probably too much, but I can say it serves its purpose. Once, I had too many rejected edits, and from that moment I have been more careful, before to edit a question.

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  • "You have had 3 edits rejected today; please try again tomorrow".. is an example .. I didn't say that it must be like so..and of course I know/understand what I am doing ..!!
    – jjj
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 6:53
  • @jjj Still, you had enough rejected edits that you were not able to edit any further questions/answers. I would take that somebody was not agreeing with you about the need to edit the questions/answers you edited, or what to edit in those questions/answers. If you understood when to edit a question, then you should not have had much rejected edits.
    – avpaderno
    Commented May 15, 2011 at 7:03

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