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Questions tagged [edits]

For questions about the process of editing, how edits work, and other general inquiries about the edit system.

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1124 votes
32 answers
121k views

Should 'Hi', 'thanks', taglines, and salutations be removed from posts?

I edit a lot of posts every day. I often run across posts with 'Hi' and 'Thanks' on the top and the bottom of the post respectively. I also run across things like: --User Should these items be ...
860 votes
21 answers
18k views

Can we have the ability to retract a close vote before it closes?

Sometimes you vote to close something and the OP then changes it to fix the issue or issues. You can't take a close vote back though. It would be nice if you could. With the new Duplicate close ...
cletus's user avatar
  • 48.3k
102 votes
1 answer
21k views

How does editing work?

It is possible for users to edit an existing post. How do edits work? Who may edit a question or answer? How can you tell what has been changed between edits? For more information, see "Why can ...
886 votes
21 answers
14k views

Allow an edit to notify downvoters: "I think I've fixed the issue now - please check"

To me, a downvote usually indicates a problem with an answer. When I downvote it's to mark the answer as having a problem, not the person. If the answer is fixed, I want to remove that downvote - but ...
Jon Skeet's user avatar
  • 93.8k
170 votes
7 answers
4k views

Are we discouraged from fixing typos and misspellings on Stack Exchange sites?

I just attempted to fix a typo on a question on cooking.stackexchange.com and saw this Oops! Your edit couldn't be submitted because: Your edit summary must be at least 10 characters This ...
raven's user avatar
  • 8,910
422 votes
5 answers
17k views

What is a 'rollback'?

What is a 'rollback' on Stack Exchange sites? I have seen this mentioned but I do not understand the term. Please note: this question has been locked as it was used as a sandbox for performing ...
357 votes
6 answers
5k views

Reject an already-approved suggested edit when rolling it back

The content of this post has been sanitized in response to anonymous feedback that the formatting was making it completely unreadable by assistive technology (AT). I strongly value making content ...
BoltClock's a Unicorn's user avatar
115 votes
8 answers
2k views

Could we have the ability to mark a change as minor in questions or answers?

It would be nice to allow users to mark a change in an answer (or question) as minor (e.g. for a simple spelling or grammar correction). A change marked as minor wouldn't push the question on top of ...
Pascal Thivent's user avatar
220 votes
3 answers
9k views

What is the etiquette for modifying posts?

I'm getting pretty close to the reputation where I can start to edit others' posts, and I'm wondering what the etiquette for when (and when not) to do so. I figure that I should edit in the following ...
144 votes
8 answers
2k views

Can we disable automatic community wiki conversion for answer edits?

Currently, if a user edits their answer more than a certain number of times, that answer is automatically converted by the system to community wiki status. This trips up many well-meaning and active ...
Brad Larson's user avatar
  • 60.7k
159 votes
3 answers
3k views

Should spam posts be edited?

I noticed that the posts of the recent spam surge on Ask Ubuntu were all edited by community members into something like EDITED - REMOVED SPAM ANSWER or similar. While I understand why the users ...
Mad Scientist's user avatar
80 votes
1 answer
3k views

When is "EDIT"/"UPDATE" appropriate in a post?

I often see questions edited into this form: Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet blah blah blah paragraph paragraph original question. UPDATE: The Lorem disappeared and left this message: "new ...
Kevin Reid's user avatar
  • 4,463
97 votes
11 answers
2k views

Is losing privileges after placing bounty OK?

My rep went over 2,000 today which meant I could edit other people's posts. Great! Then I added a bounty to a previous question, which brought me back down to 1,984...and I can no longer edit other ...
Sampson's user avatar
  • 37.1k
69 votes
3 answers
3k views

What should I keep out of my posts and titles?

I've recently been editing out things such as "hope this helps" and "good luck" from posts and was wondering if that crosses the imaginary line that seems to not exist in the scattered mess of ...
58 votes
8 answers
2k views

How far can I refactor the code in someone else's question? [closed]

With a growing number of more or less inexperienced programmers on Stack Overflow, it is frequent to see the questions containing code not only badly formatted, but also badly written. While editing a ...
Arseni Mourzenko's user avatar
20 votes
3 answers
2k views

Is there an editing 'grace period' on answers after they have been posted? [duplicate]

I answered a question (not 10 minutes ago), after about 3 minutes I decided to edit my own post with more details. When I was done editing (took me about 20 seconds to edit), I noticed there were 2 ...
174 votes
10 answers
2k views

Make first draft of a new answer part of the permanent revision history

I find the grace period can lend itself to some unscrupulous behavior on popular tags. I've often seen an earlier, minimalist answer be updated within the first 5 minutes, and incorporate something ...
Aaron Bertrand's user avatar
  • 42.9k
101 votes
8 answers
851 views

Notify us when the question has been edited after posting an answer

Consider this situation. I post a legitimate and correct answer to a question and receive a few upvotes. Then the OP realizes that's not what they wanted to ask, and significantly rewrites the ...
lc.'s user avatar
  • 4,894
115 votes
5 answers
7k views

How can I cancel an edit I made on another user's question or answer?

Edits made by users who do not have edit privileges are placed in a queue until it is peer reviewed. E.g., I edited someone else's answer. but changed my mind. If I'd edited my own question/answer, ...
tiago2014's user avatar
  • 1,452
107 votes
7 answers
1k views

Let me reward a good edit on my question/answer

Often an edit to one of my questions or answers will make it a lot better. The edit can constitute more to the site than someone posting another answer or comment. Some users make quite a lot of good ...
Ian Ringrose's user avatar
  • 27.5k
73 votes
7 answers
13k views

Is there a way to disable the hotkeys?

I navigate with Ctrl+n,p,f,b (readline/Emacs keys), so that I don't have to move my hands too much and get RSI again. Is there a way to disable Ctrl+b being hotkey for bold? Note that this is not just ...
Thomas's user avatar
  • 2,117
38 votes
1 answer
800 views

Editing a post during review doesn't show an "edit not possible" message

While reviewing First Posts on Super User, I noticed that I couldn't edit this question (see below). Clicking the "edit" link simply does nothing. Editing is not possible for me right now ...
Glorfindel's user avatar
  • 253k
34 votes
1 answer
1k views

No notification was received for an edit to a post

Normally, when a user edits one of my posts, I receive a notification like on the following depending on the case User has editing privilege (click to visit revision) Users' edit is submitted to ...
hjpotter92's user avatar
  • 5,581
32 votes
4 answers
711 views

Notifications for concurrent changes when editing posts

When editing other users' posts, to reformat code or to clarify the meaning of a question, for example, I always return to the post, and refresh it, before submitting the changes to make sure that ...
Alex Rozanski's user avatar
125 votes
3 answers
1k views

Allow non-bumping minor edits, but review them on /review

Every edit, no matter how minor, bumps a question to the frontpage of an SE site. This behaviour is important to allow the community to review edits, but it also creates significant problems when a ...
Mad Scientist's user avatar
109 votes
5 answers
1k views

The editing race - the slackers always win

I'm having a pretty big problem with the way the editing system is working lately. I think it was a recent change, but there no longer appears to be a warning message when another user has edited the ...
Andy E's user avatar
  • 14k
75 votes
5 answers
1k views

Is there a way to edit a question without bumping it to the front page?

Given that the Stack Overflow trilogy is to be a resource for googlers, I usually try to go back over my questions/answers and improve them in whatever way that I can. However, I feel this may be ...
Richie Marquez's user avatar
37 votes
4 answers
1k views

Increase captcha threshold for post editing

It's a very common behavior to refine answers several times after submitting them. Most of the time, the refinement is just adding and removing several characters or words. You might notice some other ...
mmx's user avatar
  • 17.2k
43 votes
2 answers
667 views

Allow post editor to see @comments directed at him

There have been times when I have edited a post, left no comments, yet I have made mistakes that were pointed out simply as @comments. That's ok, but unless I actually come back to the post, I will ...
alex's user avatar
  • 10.1k
23 votes
6 answers
720 views

Do we still need the Retag privilege?

Ever since suggested edits were rolled out, the Retag privilege has been a bit... Weird. You can retag questions at any rep-level, even with no rep (or account) at all - you just need a few people to ...
Shog9's user avatar
  • 454k
18 votes
1 answer
1k views

Abridged too far?

The new editing seems to have led to savage cuts being accepted, for example: UTF-8 Encoding size The links have been restored since, but as can be seen from the history, at one stage the post was ...
Remou's user avatar
  • 1,636
302 votes
38 answers
9k views

How do we encourage edits to obsolete/out of date answers?

As the network ages and we have answers that are 7+ years old, we run into situations where changes in technology, etc. result in a once great answer becoming out-of-date, obsolete, or somewhat ...
Taryn's user avatar
  • 51.5k
167 votes
14 answers
6k views

Why are there no line numbers in the code listings?

Would it make discussing code easier if you could simply refer to a particular line or range, or am I wrong?
mrt181's user avatar
  • 5,455
57 votes
5 answers
6k views

Why can any user edit any other user's question or answer?

I see an "edit" link after each question and answer. So I was wondering: how come any user can change any other user's question or answer? I think the reason behind it is that each one can share their ...
34 votes
1 answer
726 views

Why does the Community User reject / approve edits? [duplicate]

I am sure this must have been asked quite a lot of times, but I am unable to find something about the guidelines the Community uses when approving / rejecting edits. I just fixed a first question to ...
m90's user avatar
  • 930
31 votes
1 answer
433 views

Question history attributed changes to me that I didn't make

I just made some minor edits to the text of this question. I didn't edit the tags at all. When I completed my edits, my edit showed as: Now, I think those tags were present before I started my edit,...
Michael Petrotta's user avatar
70 votes
1 answer
439 views

Let me add or change edit summary during edit window (grace period)

It often occurs to me to add an edit summary to a question-edit immediately after submitting the edit, especially if the changes aren't obvious (formatting etc.). So I: Click "edit" again. Fill in ...
Ani's user avatar
  • 2,367
5 votes
3 answers
370 views

Do you wait for edits before voting to close a question? [duplicate]

Let's say that there is a question asked in a bad manner, in a way that the question is missing. For example the user shows the code and doesn't explain very well which is the problem. Usually ...
Ramy Al Zuhouri's user avatar
90 votes
6 answers
619 views

Display the original question beneath the answer edit form

Often when I edit one of my answers, it's because I want to better address the original question. The only problem is that I can't see the original question while I'm editing my answer! I'd love to ...
83 votes
7 answers
2k views

Why are trivial edits discouraged?

Looking at Edit questions and answers privilege, I find this to be a surprising requirement: Try to make the post substantively better when you edit, not just change a single character. Tiny, trivial ...
tshepang's user avatar
  • 9,883
63 votes
8 answers
6k views

How aggressively should we maintain and improve very popular questions? [closed]

I was discussing this question on team chat: How do I perform an IF...THEN in an SQL SELECT? This question is a high value asset on the site it was posted, it already has 150k views, 120+ total votes ...
waffles's user avatar
  • 108k
62 votes
1 answer
1k views

Inline Editing for Stack Exchange Sites

We have inline comment editing, inline editing of questions on Area 51, and inline re-tagging. Can we please have inline Question and Answer editing on the Stack Exchange sites? This has been ...
jjnguy's user avatar
  • 34.1k
94 votes
5 answers
2k views

Kill the Retag option, use just Edit

For users with 500 < Reputation < 2000, there are two options: "retag" and "edit". It's great that the retag button is there, but it clutters up the question view. There is ...
Undo's user avatar
  • 50.8k
83 votes
2 answers
1k views

Comments that fail to post start the "You can only comment every 5 seconds" timer

First: This is not about whether rate-limiting is good or bad. This is not a misunderstanding of what the "Only 1 comment allowed per 5 seconds; timer reset." message means. This is not ...
75 votes
3 answers
893 views

Notify question OP (and those who marked it a favourite) if an answer has been modified

Seriously, I had not noticed e.g. Jeff's edit here had he not also retagged my question.
Tobias Kienzler's user avatar
58 votes
8 answers
612 views

It should be possible to retag a question without bumping it to the front page

While bumps are generally good, there are niche cases where they are harmful: I recently decided I would consolidate two tags on Stack Overflow: "openoffice" and "openoffice.org". They refer to ...
Matthew's user avatar
  • 1,087
35 votes
4 answers
531 views

Cannot retract downvote if post has been edited within first 5 minutes of posting

Please do not close this as a duplicate unless you can remove the “status-completed” tag from the original report (because it’s obviously not been completed). Steps to reproduce: Have someone post ...
Timwi's user avatar
  • 3,180
21 votes
1 answer
1k views

When is it appropriate to edit someone else's code? [duplicate]

Possible Duplicate: How far can I refactor someone else's code? I see a lot of edits in queue where some well-meaning user attempts to fix OP's code. They range from minor syntax corrections, to near ...
user avatar
89 votes
12 answers
2k views

SO is too eager to turn my edited answers into Community Wiki [closed]

I like to edit my answers. To clarify, illuminate, add examples, add links, point to new information as it crops up, etc. It's highly irritating that my effort to improve my answer turns it into a ...
Nosredna's user avatar
  • 2,391
38 votes
2 answers
1k views

Undone edits disappear from revision history

I'm reporting the following bug per Shog9's request. Consider the following scenario: You edit any post on a SE site where you have edit privileges. In a second edit within the grace period of the ...
Dennis's user avatar
  • 22.7k

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