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Today, I was happily editing ...

happily editing

... some old posts that I felt needed it. It's important to state that I haven't got full edit rights on SO yet.

Now, on some posts it takes some time to edit them, be it because they're long or be it because I'm formatting code snippets by pasting to and from Notepad++. Today, it happened more than once that during the time I needed to edit a post, the edit queue got completely filled. In such a case, upon clicking Save Edits, I get to the following page:

page not found

Now my edit is - almost - lost. The back button of the browser takes me back to the post I was editing, and luckily all my edits are still there. However, the Save Edits button is grayed:

Save Edits button grayed out

So the only option I now have is copy and paste my edited version of this post into some external editor and wait until the edit queue gets emptied.

I'm asking for a way to not have to do this. Maybe if the queue is full, redirect to the editing page without graying out the Save Edits button.

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    I've not seen this, but have experienced plenty <--bold text of strange behavior while editing posts, but usually active ones (and I do have editing rights). Are we sure this has to do with a queue (what queue?) being full? Not sure why you'd hit a 404 by design. Did you refresh and try again?
    – user159834
    Jul 15, 2011 at 14:59
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    @Wes Yes, it happened multiple times today. Always when I got this behavior, I simply picked any random post, clicked edit, and got "Sorry, the edit queue is currently full". So I'm pretty sure that's what it causes.
    – takrl
    Jul 15, 2011 at 15:01
  • @Wes Regarding refresh, if after using the back button refreshing the page, I had three scenarios a) I'd get the "Sorry..." message b) I'd get the original post without my edits c) I'd get the post still including my edits. My guesses are that a) probably means the edit queue is still full. b) probably means there was no draft saved while I was editing (a short edit, but still long enough to hit queue full) c) probably means queue was full, but while editing a draft of my work was saved. (Note: All of these are just guesses, but I think they make sense).
    – takrl
    Jul 15, 2011 at 15:06
  • In case anyone wants to know, this is the post from the screenshots.
    – takrl
    Jul 15, 2011 at 15:14
  • @Wesley: The answer to "what queue" is the suggested edits queue. Users who don't have full edit privileges (2k+) have to suggest edits for approval by 2 other community members with edit privileges. That suggested edits queue can (and does!) fill up occasionally on a site with as many active users as SO. When it's full, no more edit suggestions will be accepted temporarily. More details here. So yes, takrl, we know what you're talking about. This is a perfectly reasonable suggestion.
    – Cody Gray - on strike
    Jul 15, 2011 at 15:16
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    I don't need any convincing, just making sure it's not isolated and that OP tried the usual refresh tactics. Not sure why I'm being addressed directly, I don't have any technical information about it and I'm in support of the suggestion. Wasn't aware of the edit queue however.
    – user159834
    Jul 15, 2011 at 15:20
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    @Wes You're being addressed because your comment contained two questions :) @Cody Thanks. Sometimes I'm not sure just how much detail to put into such a post, I may have overdone it a bit this time.
    – takrl
    Jul 15, 2011 at 15:22

3 Answers 3

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I just spent a few hours on this, reworking the logic.

I removed all the queue size checking from a bunch of spots and only perform the check just before you submit an edit and before we render links on the question page.

This means we are able to do this now:

edit queue full

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    Great, this way I know I can't submit the edit only after I spent some time on it. And then my unreliable browser gets to play the role of the queue.
    – Stephane Bersier
    May 3, 2020 at 16:22
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I agree, but in the meantime I am increasing the suggested edit queue size from 40 to 160.

Resolving things in the queue is usually very rapid -- far more rapid than clearing mod flags, which can be excruciatingly slow to research, load the page, and vet. I see no reason to cap the suggested edit queue so low at this time.

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    Why do you need to cap the suggested edit queue size at all?
    – Kevin Vermeer
    Jul 18, 2011 at 5:44
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    see codinghorror.com/blog/2009/02/… ; everything has to be rate limited or There Will Be Blood
    – Jeff Atwood
    Jul 18, 2011 at 5:48
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    Of course it has to be rate limited; I've read that blog post. However, you're not implementing rate limiting, though, you're implementing quantity limiting.
    – Kevin Vermeer
    Jul 18, 2011 at 5:57
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    Perhaps you should limit the rate of edits from a particular user/IP. You should be able to differentiate between 81 good edits (like those from takrl, who has a Copy Editor badge and doesn't have edit privileges yet...!) and 81 submissions of spam in a way that allows takrl to continue submitting edits.
    – Kevin Vermeer
    Jul 18, 2011 at 5:58
  • Rereading the post, you're almost (but not quite) implementing (3) Per global action. Ensure that a particular action can only happen (n) times per minute. Kind of the nuclear option, so obviously must be used with care. Can make sense for the "big red launch button" administrator functions which should be extraordinarily rare -- until a malicious user happens to gain administrator rights and starts pushing that big red button over and over. This particular action already gets reviewed.
    – Kevin Vermeer
    Jul 18, 2011 at 6:03
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    @kevin it's still a work queue, and needs to be capped. It doesn't hit the limit that often even at 40, it just depends on variables like time of day and who is approving vs who is suggesting edits.
    – Jeff Atwood
    Jul 18, 2011 at 6:05
  • @Kevin Thanks, but still, I'm not a perfect editor. After all, I've had five suggestions out of 489 rejected. And that badge you mentioned is the freshest one I've got :) @Jeff thanks for the limit increase ...
    – takrl
    Jul 18, 2011 at 7:40
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    Can the check of the queue length be done at the point the edit starts, then if the eidt compete within say 30 minutes, it should be allowed even if the queue is filled at that time.
    – Ian Ringrose
    Jul 29, 2011 at 8:11
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    Is a 160 quota enough in 2021? I've seen this error twice in 2 weeks, while editing some answer at SO.
    – carloswm85
    Jul 28, 2021 at 15:12
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    160 is not enough in 2022. I get this every day I'm going through reviews and editing answers.
    – Vapid
    Jan 20, 2022 at 7:21
  • I constantly get this. Tried multiple times to edit an answer, waiting a few minutes between each attempt - but to no avail.
    – Amit Beckenstein
    Apr 14, 2022 at 16:23
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Maybe there shouldn't be a limit. Users seem to increase and so do edits.

Editing an answer shouldn't get you out of your work-flow but if one has to wait it does. Or one might forget to send the answer and important knowledge gets lost.

enter image description here

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