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I have now enough reputation points on Stack Overflow to edit every post directly. But sometimes (especially if this is about a field where I'm not savvy, or when I try to edit a question title without having understood the question itself) I might be not totally sure about whether my edit really is an improvement.

For now, I have these options:

  1. Do the edit anyway, hope that someone else will catch it if it is wrong
  2. Don't do the edit, and hope that someone else will see this post and edit it in the right way
  3. Let a comment and hope that someone will see it (either after editing or instead of it).
  4. Flag the post for moderator attention (but will the moderators know it better?)
  5. Search the right chat room to find someone who knows more about the topic.

All these are not really optimal, I think.

I would like to have a check box

[_] Submit this edit for approval

which, when checked, would submit the edit into the usual edit approval queue.
Then I would get at least one or two other pairs of eyes looking over my edit, and maybe even improving it.

(I don't really care about the +2 reputation for the edit - I think it should be without any reputation difference here.)

There's an existing feature request for nearly giving everyone the ability to suggest edits that the post owner can approve, but I'm simply interested in being able to insert them into the general edit queue where anyone can approve them.

Actually, I could do this right now by having a low-reputation sock puppet (or a totally anonymous edit), but I think this is not the intended use for sock puppets, is it? Also, I would like to be able to get feedback for my edit.

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  • 25
    Or, 6), open a new (incognito) browser where you're not logged in, and make an anonymous edit suggestion. No need for a sock puppet.
    – Arjan
    Commented Aug 20, 2011 at 21:00
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    Especially would be useful when trying to clean up really bad question titles.
    – Troyen
    Commented Aug 20, 2011 at 21:01
  • @Troyen: Yes, this is how I got the idea. stackoverflow.com/posts/4537767/revisions
    – Paŭlo Ebermann
    Commented Aug 20, 2011 at 21:10
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    @Arjan: Actually, I would consider this as a kind of sock puppet, too. Even worse, I will not be able to gather any feedback on my edits this way.
    – Paŭlo Ebermann
    Commented Aug 20, 2011 at 21:11
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    I'm not sure this is a duplicate. The other question is about suggesting edits to the OP only, while this question is about using the normal edit queue as it is. This suggestion seems much more reasonable.
    – hammar
    Commented Aug 20, 2011 at 22:17
  • @random: While Suggest-Edit rights for 2k+? is a similar feature-request, it is not the same, as hammar said.
    – Paŭlo Ebermann
    Commented Aug 20, 2011 at 22:32
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    Why, exactly, do you want this, other than to game the reputation system? People can already "improve" your edit; the question is automatically bumped back to the top of the list where they're guaranteed to see it. That's precisely why we don't allow "no-bump" editing.
    – Cody Gray - on strike
    Commented Aug 21, 2011 at 6:37
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    @Cody: This is not about reputation - I would even use this if there were a small penalty for using this (e.g. -1 for submitting something to the queue). I just (sometimes) feel better when I'm sure some other people think my edit is good.
    – Paŭlo Ebermann
    Commented Aug 21, 2011 at 11:00
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    @Cody: I recently performed an edit where I reversed the sense of something the OP had written - I added a "not" - because I was pretty sure that's what he meant, from context. How would other people know that I did this, other than by opening up the edit out of random curiosity? The only person likely to notice would be the OP. Relying on other readers to review substantive edits doesn't make sense - at least, not unless I add a comment describing the edit.
    – Ed Staub
    Commented Sep 19, 2011 at 21:10

4 Answers 4

Reset to default
7

You should just go for the first option, the other options don't really learn you anything...

Do the edit anyway, hope that someone else will catch it if it is wrong

Learning from your own mistakes is one of the best ways to get to be an excellent prolific editor...

Rather than a rejected suggested edit for no reason, people will stop you and tell you what is wrong.

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  • 2
    In some cases I fear that there won't ever anybody look at these questions if not by randomly finding it via a google search (but these people might not now what is wrong with my edit, maybe won't even realize that it was edited) ... or if I "force" someone to look by doing an edit suggestion.
    – Paŭlo Ebermann
    Commented Aug 20, 2011 at 22:35
  • Of course, your point about getting feedback is also important. This would go good together with Pending approvals: allow for adding reasons to rejections.
    – Paŭlo Ebermann
    Commented Aug 20, 2011 at 22:36
  • The post owner is informed of the edit, as well as random regulars that pass by. I'm pretty sure if I were to edit a question in a wrong manner that someone would tell me that I shouldn't do it that way. Reasons for rejections are in most cases not necessary, and just like edit reasons they aren't always filled in either; so I doubt if that would be a good solution...
    – Tamara Wijsman
    Commented Aug 20, 2011 at 23:09
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If it's truly important an edit be made, but you don't know how to make it correctly, flag it for moderator attention.

If it's not important, don't worry about it.

If an edit would improve the question, but you're not sure you're the right person to make the edit, there are at least 3,264 other people who could make the edit. One of them will notice, if it's an important edit to make. If it's not a particularly visible question, a comment sounds like a perfect way to give an extra push to the 2k+ users who do read the question.

That's how community moderation works -- we're a team, and if one of us happens to go to sleep, or to work, or on vacation, the other people fill in. I don't answer C# questions, Jon Skeet does.

If you aren't sure how to edit a question, someone else will be.

Edit: A comment by Matthew Read also points out that a comment serves also to notify the person who asked the question that they should try and improve their question.

Edit 2: There is nothing stopping another 2k+ person who sees the question from further improving it if your edit wasn't enough / was misleading because you don't know the topic well.

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  • Do comments make a question more visible?
    – Paŭlo Ebermann
    Commented Aug 20, 2011 at 21:13
  • No, but like I said, there are many eyes -- I bet every question gets read by a number of 2k+ users.
    – agf
    Commented Aug 20, 2011 at 21:18
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    Your comment cas ask the OP to clarify as well @Paulo.
    – user154510
    Commented Aug 20, 2011 at 21:41
  • @Matthew: Yes, sometimes I do this. But not when the question was 6 months ago and the asker was last seen one day after his question. (Also, these questions tend not to get much attention from other users.)
    – Paŭlo Ebermann
    Commented Aug 20, 2011 at 21:44
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    If after six months there is still an edit to be made, probably either the question isn't worth the effort, or the edit isn't that important.
    – agf
    Commented Aug 20, 2011 at 21:46
  • @agf: But Jon Skeet does not edit C# questions (apart from his own ones), from a short glance on his edit history.
    – Paŭlo Ebermann
    Commented Aug 20, 2011 at 21:47
  • Yes, but there are lots of eyes on C# questions, and some of those people make edits.
    – agf
    Commented Aug 20, 2011 at 21:48
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    So, should I instead vote to close all "not so very good" old questions? As "too localized"? (Have a look at my recent edit history to see about what kind of questions I'm speaking.)
    – Paŭlo Ebermann
    Commented Aug 20, 2011 at 21:49
  • I just looked at your last 10 edits -- first of all, the title changes were good improvements to all of them, and huge improvements to some. I'm not sure the relevance to this discussion, though. There must be enough questions out there you can improve yourself, without taking two other people's time, that you can just let the ones you're not sure about go, and if someone else feels they can improve them, they will? There is also never anything stopping another 2k+ from editing after you if they think there is further improvement to be made.
    – agf
    Commented Aug 20, 2011 at 22:00
  • I'm trying to clear my tags from these "bad question titles", thus I don't want to let the ones where I'm not totally competent lying around for someone else to improve (which might not ever happen). My examples were about "probably the question isn't worth the effort". (I'm not sure if they really are worth the effort.)
    – Paŭlo Ebermann
    Commented Aug 20, 2011 at 22:43
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Just a workaround, if you're really motivated...

Create a gist with your edited version of the question.

https://gist.github.com/

Then leave a comment suggesting the answerer consider incorporating your edits into their answer. Let them know the change was too radical, in your opinion, to make it without consulting them.

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-1

This sort of situation absolutely disincentivizes certain attempts at contribution from high-rep people, and I think that that's a bad thing. And, what 3,264 other people are going to view an edit I make on a small site? My highest rep account is on RPG.SE (as of posting, 602 2k+ rep users), which, well, isn't StackOverflow, and I've gotten almost all of it for asking questions - not editing anything. When I hit 2k rep there, I'm going to have an active disincentive to attempt to improve questions and answers, because I won't know what I'm doing, and that's not good.

In short: the review queues (and their counterparts in the mod toolset, votes) are important for trying things with the backstop of at least a few other pairs of eyes - and it shouldn't be taken away just because someone asked a lot of new questions, since that compounds the issue small sites have. I don't want to be always swinging a hammer.

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    "I'm going to have an active disincentive to attempt to improve questions and answers, because I won't know what I'm doing" If you need other people to tell you whether your edit is good or not, if you don't feel like you can make a change without review, you shouldn't be making the edit at all, whether its reviewed or not.
    – Nicol Bolas
    Commented Jun 2, 2019 at 17:44
  • @NicolBolas How, exactly, am I meant to learn what it is I'm supposed to do, if I cannot experience doing it?
    – Stackstuck
    Commented Jun 2, 2019 at 19:14

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