Multiple very similar edits by different < 2000 reputation users to the same post

Question

What I've seen multiple times is that when a low quality question is posted, multiple users make edits and do pretty much the same (add code blocks, fix question title, fix grammar) to save that question. Which is not a bad thing. If my understanding is right, only 1 edit will be accepted, and all others will be rejected, even if they are almost the same.

This means that your edit can be rejected even though everything is fine with it, except it was made a couple seconds too late.

I don't have 2000 reputation on any SO sites (yet). I assume that edits done by users with <2000 reputation can only be accepted or rejected. Is that correct?

Do you think this needs to be changed? A minor problem I see now is that you could easily accumulate a couple of rejected edits. And rejected edit is often considered the same as a bad edit, which is not always true.

My understanding of approved/rejected edits is as follows:

• Edit is good if it follows these 5 points. If it's good, it should be approved.

  1. ► fix grammatical or spelling errors
  2. ► clarify meaning without changing it
  3. ► correct minor mistakes
  4. ► add related resources or links
  5. ► always respect the original author

• Edit is bad if it does not follow 5 points mentioned above and should be rejected.

All in all, this is a very minor issue. What do you think?

Answer 1

You're pretty much spot on, though I'd just say there's really one governing factor as to whether or not I approve an edit:

Does this edit make the post better?

Of course, the factors you mentioned all come into play, but really if it makes the post a better post then I'll approve it. If I feel I am not qualified to judge (usually a code change), I will neither approve or reject it. If it makes the post worse, I reject it.

Also, your assumption:

If my understanding is right, only 1 edit will be accepted, and all others will be rejected, even if they are almost the same.

Is incorrect. Only one suggested edit is allowed at a time, currently. There can be lots of successive edits for sure, but only one pending edit at a time.

Answer 2

My understanding of approved/rejected edits is as follows:

Edit is good if it follows these 5 points. If it's good, it should be approved.

    ► fix grammatical or spelling errors  
    ► clarify meaning without changing it  
    ► correct minor mistakes  
    ► add related resources or links  
    ► always respect the original author  

Edit is bad if it does not follow 5 points mentioned above and should be rejected.

That seems like very good guidelines.

I guess I tend to be a bit more strict than Daniel and also reject some edits that do improve the post, but perhaps not enough.

Say that there are 10 typos in the post and you only fix one, or the poster writes 'i' instead of 'I' and you just fix that in one or two places. That edit might be rejected, especially if there are 5-10 similar suggested edits by the same person.

If you just miss one typo out of the 10, I'll probably fix the last one and your edit will be approved.

There are also some really bad edits, like adding the answer to someone else's question or changing correct code to incorrect. Those are quickly rejected. I believe some of us end up with about 30% reject votes.