How can we be better at approving suggested edits that improve answers?

Question

Having been fairly active on Stack Overflow's suggested edit review queue in the past couple of years, I observe that there are a number of worthwhile suggested edits that get rejected because they change more than the form of an answer. But that's wrong — edits that make an answer more correct should be accepted.

To give at least one example: a few days ago, I caught a suggested edit that already had one rejection. But this edit was right. I know because this was my own answer; I'd probably typed the code directly into my browser, and someone came along, tried running the code, and fixed a few syntax errors. This isn't an isolated case, though I find it hard to search for examples (a vast majority of edits are either obviously bad or on subjects where I don't know enough to judge).

In the example I cite, I wouldn't have had my mistake pointed out if I hadn't happened to look through the edit queue at that particular time. Notifying users of edit suggestions on their own posts would help, but that's not the whole answer. Users with the edit privilege can go and fix a mistake in any post. Suggested edits are meant to give that power to anyone, with supervision.

Related prior discussion: Should Suggested Edits change the technical content of a post?, which strangely seemed to discourage edits that improve the content of a post. This comes up again and again on Meta Stack Overflow (recent example). Yet the guidelines for commenting and editing clear state that you should edit out minor mistakes:

When should I edit posts?

Any time you see a post that needs improvement and are inclined to suggest an edit, you are welcome to do so. The original author of a question or answer may always edit their own post, regardless of reputation level. (…)

• To correct minor mistakes or add updates as the post ages

When shouldn't I comment? (…)

• Suggesting corrections that don't fundamentally change the meaning of the post; instead, make or suggest an edit;

How can we strive to get worthwhile improvements past the suggested edit review? In particular, how do we educate Stack Overflow participants (I think this attitude is more prevalent on SO) that it is ok, and even encouraged, to correct minor mistakes in answers?

Answer 1

It seems to me more productive to leave a comment explaining why the author's code is invalid, and allow the author to make the necessary changes. By suggesting an edit, you're involving at least two (three on Stack Overflow) other people who may or may not understand the author's intent. It's better to have a conversation with the author and allow them to either fix their own code, or explain why the code is correct as written.

Prior to the suggested edits system, it was generally understood to be bad etiquette to edit someone else's code, especially in a question.

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That said, if you still insist on modifying someone else's code with a suggested edit, and want to increase your chances of it getting approved, leave a detailed explanation of why your edit is correct in the "edit description" box. I have approved a number of suggested edits where I didn't fully understand the code changes in the edits (I'm not proficient in every programming language), but the reasoning in the explanation made perfect sense.

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Here is an example of an edit I would probably approve:

MyTyp type = new MyType()

Becomes

MyType type = new MyType();

…because the intent is clear and the fix is obvious.

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Here is an example of an edit I would probably reject:

MyType myType = new myType();

becomes

var myType = new myType();

…because the use of var is a preference, and the real problem wasn't fixed, the casing of myType.

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If a user extensively modified a post in a way that had nothing to do with the post, I would probably reject it also. For example, a suggested edit that changes a post to use parameters instead of string concatenation to avoid sql injection problems while the post wasn't asking about sql injection.

Answer 2

What about adding the ability to leave a comment for the other reviewers when you approve an edit.

This won't catch all the problems - but if one of the first few reviewers notices that it's actually a good edit and suspects it's about to get wrongly rejected, he could leave a comment pointing out some of the mitigating factors - something to make the other reviewers at least stop and take a second look.

Answer 3

I believe you have identified the contradiction between the commenting and editing documentation that leaves posts with small errors unfixed.

However, in (my) practice, these are best fixed by leaving a comment for the OP (or some kind editor with full edit privileges) noting the typo, etc. The comment is then deleted when the error has been fixed.

Coming from Wikipedia, where minor edits are common, I believe this is a feature we want somehow -- presumably it has to be a threshold issue of some sort where small edits can be accepted but aren't worthy of reputation.

But some "small edits", especially in code sections, can be important enough for reputation or even too big to be accepted as suggested edits.