Non-Vandalism, Full Rewrite of questions & Rollbacks

Question

Today, several questions had rollbacks to versions that were 100% different to the question it was turned to by the OP. As reason "New questions should be asked as such. Total rewrites are not acceptable." was given, but there is no such policy to be found on META.

• https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/58470/
• https://law.stackexchange.com/questions/58442/

In one case, the rollback invalidated an answer that was given relying on the new question:

• DMCA for postal services?

The rolling back person did comment:

Before answering, you should first check that the question makes sense. Total rewrites to avoid a question suspension are not acceptable, and should not be rewarded by answers.

I do not agree to this sentiment that an answerer has to research the question history. Questions are to be answered as they are found. The dilemma was enhanced by that answer having been accepted - making deletion of the now wrong answer impossible. Following, the rollback was reversed by Moderator.

Hypothetical example to clarify what is asked here:

Assume the original author asked about (the right to have banana trees) and then - presumely breaking the rules - rewrote their question to ask about (the obligations of owning the yellow brick road), and someone answered... may you rollback to the old question?

Which version of the question is to be kept: (Banana tree owner rights) or (Yellow Brick Road Owner Oblgations)?"

Policy demand

What shall be the formal policy about total rewrites, especially since it is not visible from the questions themselves that they have been totally rewritten and "recycled" by the owner compared to normal edits?

Answer 1

As a matter of policy we have the following reasons for rejecting edits to a post – from the Suggested Edits review process:

Policy

Questions should not be edited in a way that significantly alters their meaning. If someone wants to ask a meaningfully different question they should post it as a new question.

Practice

If the original author benignly edits a question into something completely different it would be better to point the author to this policy, and to the ability to delete the original question. Using a rollback to correct a violation of this policy on an unanswered, unvoted question might set a good example, but in practice it's not as instructive to the user as a helpful comment pointing to this policy.

(If there is some other nefarious behavior afoot then it should be flagged for moderator attention so that it can be properly investigated and handled. In such a scenario a rollback will likely serve only to obscure the matter.)

I see two scenarios in which corrective rollbacks (and even locks) are necessary:

1. The question has a positive vote score before the "rewrite." In that case the integrity of the votes has been violated because they applied to different content.

2. There is an answer to a different version of the question.

A helpful answer trumps the other considerations

If a user takes the time to write a helpful answer, that effort and content should not be lost due to misbehavior of other users. The question that was answered is the question that will be preserved.

Moderators will do whatever we can to preserve the work of authors of helpful answers.

(Granted, if things get messy the best solution for answer authors – which does not require moderator tools – might be to separately post the question that was answered and then the answer that was written.)

Answer 2

This is not something we need to argue ourselves. Stack Exchange already has established etiquette and ground rules, if not formal policy on this.

Edits should be used to improve the question. They are not for completely rewriting the text, especially when done to attract significant attention using one topic before changing to another (bait-and-switch tactics) or to avoid the consequences of a history of low quality posts (such as question suspensions).

If a user has a new question, they should ask a new question. If they cannot do so, the system is working as intended; abusing the system should be met with warnings or suspension, not support and enabling.

Answer 3

One of the reasons (besides the site's policy) why questions should not significantly differ from the original author's intent is that all of the content is licensed to the site, by the authors, under the Creative Commons license.

The license allows derivative work and distribution, provided that

• original authors are given attribution;
• attribution is not made in a way that suggests the the original author endorses the derivative content.

Despite the fact that edit history is available, the fact is that the original authors' names remain on all questions and answers. This may create the impression that they endorse the new phrasing. Which clearly may not be the case.

Edit. Thanks to Trish's comment I see that this didn't quite address the question here. So I'll add the following.

I think the original author's intent should be preserved.

I do see that feetwet's answer seems to disagree. But an answer, even a good one, could inform the question author that what they asked is, in fact, not what they meant to ask.

Asking another question which is different, but similar enough, can bring about a "duplicate" designation and take away the author's ability to refine their question to ask exactly what they were curious about. Rather than rollback the question, maybe alternatively a note should be attached to the answer saying that it addressed the question before it was revised.