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I fully understand why there's a filter that requests one to submit edits of at least 6 characters. But either is there, or could there be, some form of "yes, I'm sure" override? Barring that, what should one do when an answer really does need a one word added to it - because it won't compile as written, as it's missing a piece of required syntax which happens to be a two-character word, but is otherwise helpful - and doesn't need anything else? It seems entirely backwards that one should be required to make some other unnecessary edit, that would confuse anyone looking at a diff?

Yes, I could just change a word to another word that means the same thing, or add some invisible whitespace, but is that really what I should be doing?

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  • Explain the problem in a comment under the question. The questioner will (probably) notice and (sometimes) edit his post, and the other users will understand what's going on (and edit the question themselves if need be). Commented Oct 3, 2013 at 19:05
  • 1
    To add to Frederic's comment, it could also just be noticed by another reader with the 2k rep needed to make the edit.
    – Servy
    Commented Oct 3, 2013 at 19:09
  • @FrédéricHamidi The question that caused me to ask this was from February, so no guarantee of that. Though I suppose that's true in general.
    – neminem
    Commented Oct 3, 2013 at 19:23
  • Note: In this particular case I just gave in and made a couple other cleanup edits that I wouldn't have made on their own, but which I didn't feel were actively detrimental. I was just curious if there was any better way.
    – neminem
    Commented Oct 3, 2013 at 19:28
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    Adding a html comment is a nice trick. (or was, no idea if it still works) Commented Oct 3, 2013 at 19:41
  • I'd go for Roberts point 2) - the edit review system is so inconsistent that it is rarely worth it - and then every three months I do it anyway. In a recent question I changed "deference" to "difference" - did some additional minor clean-up to meet the 6 char minimum, made very clear why deference wasn't correct, and still saw the first reviewer reject it.
    – user213634
    Commented Oct 3, 2013 at 20:47
  • 2
    @CodesInChaos: if that gets past review, the 3 reviewers who approved should be banned from the queues for life.
    – Wooble
    Commented Oct 3, 2013 at 20:48
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    @Wooble You just need one of them hitting improve, editing the comment out. I do that if I consider the edit significant enough despite its brevity. Sites other than stackoverflow are also much less strict with edits since their queues aren't as clogged, so getting something like this through on them is quite likely. | Personally I don't consider "too minor" a valid reject reason, but I know I'm in the minority there. Commented Oct 3, 2013 at 20:50
  • And for the because it won't compile as written, as it's missing a piece of required syntax - changing code is almost always a big no-no.
    – user213634
    Commented Oct 3, 2013 at 20:54
  • @AndersUP That link is to a question about readability. I wouldn't generally edit just to make it readable unless it was completely unreadable, but why wouldn't you want to edit code that didn't work, in an answer, especially an answer that got accepted and was otherwise extremely helpful except that it was missing one "as", so that people in the future could use that answer without spending a few minutes trying to figure out why it didn't work like I did?
    – neminem
    Commented Oct 3, 2013 at 21:20
  • @AndersUP Oh fair enough. I did edit both - only because the question-poster also copied the accepted answer into the question (under a statement that this was the fixed version of the code in his question.)
    – neminem
    Commented Oct 3, 2013 at 21:26
  • And I'm not saying I disagree with you for answers, and the consensus seem to be in line, but in practice it is a very fine line, and you'll easily find clarifying edits rejected.
    – user213634
    Commented Oct 3, 2013 at 21:27
  • Take a look at this edit. I ended up posting the exact same answer, but with the line added solely for context as the OP had it on the wrong side of the loop. The edit was rejected as incorrect.
    – user213634
    Commented Oct 3, 2013 at 21:35

1 Answer 1

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You have two choices:

  1. Leave a comment below the post explaining the edit, or
  2. Wait until you get 2000 reputation so that you can make such edits without community review.

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