Are my edits needless?

Those edits vary in terms of the value they add to the post. I wouldn't want to enumerate every kind of edit which is suitable and always welcome, but here is a relevant subset:

• Removing noisy meta-commentary such as "hope this helps", "please help me", "thanks", and "Happy New Year";
• Removing an attempt to answer a question by editing the question;
• Applying the right kind of formatting (itemizing enumerations, code constructs like this, quoting only where quoting makes sense, etc.).

Other kinds of edits may be under a grey line, but there is generally no reason to roll them back unless important information was removed.

It is unfortunate, but some people are too overprotective of their own posts, as well as for their "original" and "charismatic" form, while often even forgetting that by posting on Stack Overflow, they are handing over the right to distribute and edit them for the betterment of the platform.

Let's not forget why we are editing other people's posts: so that they become better resources for future visitors. That the poster wanted to say "hope this helps" should not override the ideal of improving clarity across the repository. Seeing the posts from the given examples, I wouldn't be surprised if you would want to slow down a bit, but it's not exactly these edits that we should be worried about here. This is just another example of someone being unappreciative of curation through editing, deliberately making a distorted assessment of quality for the sake of personal identity.

Should anyone (as happened in this case) leave one or more non-constructive comments about how anyone's edits on someone's "special" post are useless, flag them and move along.

See also:

• Are minor style edits ok?

I frequently repost solutions as separate CW answers. We had a discussion on how to attribute a reposted answer here.

Your attribution text was as follows:

Answer on the behalf of OP:

I tend to prefer a slightly longer form:

(Reposting solution on behalf of the question author, to move it to the answer space.)

As an editor, I wouldn't correct your introductory text, but my phrasing has been developed after several years of feedback:

• The acronym "OP" is not universally understood in all English-speaking cultures
• I use brackets and italics to show the material is an aside
• Some folks have not understood that the post is merely the question author's own material, so I now explain why it is being reposted

Other than that, it sounds like you are doing some assiduous editing work - keep it up! Most material authors accept edits without demur, but occasionally I bump into a high-rep user who doesn't believe their material should be edited. In such cases, if your edits are a clear improvement, raise a custom flag for a moderator, explain the issue, and then try to forget about it.

I had a quick look at your edits.

1. This was bad. I found it harder to read it after your edit.
2. Good
3. Mixed feelings. Your correction of the language was good
4. Very good
5. Very good except for the added indentation in the code block
6. Good
7. Is exactly the same answer as 2

In general, I think your edits are good. But I can understand that some people might find you a bit eager. It's one thing when I look at edits of other peoples answers and a completely different thing when I look at edits of my own posts. Many people (myself included) get a bit defensive about "my" posts. So it can be a good idea to be a bit careful.

Another advice is to not edit answers shortly after they are posted. I really hate having to deal with other people editing my answer while I'm still in the process of editing it myself. It's better to wait a few hours or a day, depending on the situation. Before that, use comments to tell the author what you want to be done.

There's a lot of misinformation and hyperbole being bandied about in the answers here, on both sides of the debate. On the one side, you have folks who appear to have had their ego bruised by someone editing their content, fundamentally missing the fact that Stack Overflow has been, since its very inception, a collaboratively-edited site, where all users are encouraged to leave a page better than they found it. On the other side, you have the reactionary view to that, with people defending all of the edits with a broad brush, simply because they want to reassure you and clarify that edits to posts are welcome.

The truth is—as ever—somewhere in the middle. Edits to posts are strongly encouraged, but edits should be substantial and leave the post better than you found it. They should also always strive to be consistent with the author's intent, as best as it can be determined. Edits are the lifeblood of the Stack Exchange model. The "wiki" aspect is as much in our DNA as it is in Wikipedia's.

I don't want to discourage you from editing, but at the same time, you've asked for honest feedback (which is great), so I don't want to just give you lip service about how editing is a thankless job.

1. This edit (revision #2) was perhaps a bit too heavy-handed. I would not have removed the indication that the user experienced a similar problem; I believe that is relevant information that puts the answer into context and suggests that it's been actually tested. But ultimately that's a judgment call. The bigger issue is, if you're going to take time to edit that post, you should be correcting other, more severe issues with it, like the comma splices (apparently used in place of periods).

   Subsequent edits by other users have also been a mixed bag. The next one did exactly as I suggested and fixed the grammar (periods between sentences), and it also added a sentence clarifying what the block of code actually was, which is great. But it added superfluous inline code formatting, which doesn't make the post any easier to read.

2. This edit (revision #2) is much better. I see almost nothing to nitpick about here, really. I would have fixed the grammar ("After downloading any…").

   A subsequent editor saw fit to introduce a precaution that the provided download link was not an official one. That's fine, but it isn't an argument against your edit. You didn't invent the link out of whole cloth; it was there in the original revision. What isn't fine is that the subsequent editor went further, removing the download link entirely. That's not legitimate. It violates one of the conditions stated earlier, namely that edits should strive to be consistent with the author's intent.

3. A similar thing for this edit (revision #2). In fact, I really don't like that edit at all. The post did need to be edited, but your edit wasn't really much of an improvement. The major source of improvement was removing "Hope this will help someone", which is a start, but the rest of the edits were not improvements. I admit to being heavily biased against dumping a "Source" link at the bottom of a post. That doesn't meet our attribution requirements.

   I've made some pretty heavy edits to that answer; check them out as a guide for future actions.

4. This edit (revision #2) is fine. One simply cannot argue that the bullet points were not an improvement over the original. Are there other things to fix? Yeah, probably. Is that revision #2 the best possible form of the answer? Nah. But that's too high of a bar to impose on individual edits/editors. You just need to leave the post better than you found it, and adding those bullet points definitely makes it more readable.

   On that basis, the rollback of that edit by another user is…inexcusable. If they'd found some other way to improve the readability of the post, then that'd be fine with me. But they didn't. They just dumped it back to its original, less readable state. Huh? No. (Their ultimate attempt, revision #6, is much better. It definitely left the post better than it was in the previous revision, #5.)

5. This edit (revision #2) is also a clear improvement, for precisely the same reasons as the previous edit. Again, there are plenty of additional improvements that could be made. I'd have made them. I also have very good grammar skills. I don't expect all editors to have those same skills. If you're improving the readability of a post, then you should go ahead and edit, even if you cannot achieve perfection. And, again, we can quibble about whether links to a dubious download site are useful, but the link was in the original (you didn't add it), and so removing it without finding a replacement does not seem to add value or respect the author's intent.

6. This edit (revision #2) is excellent. Well, mostly excellent. Again, I'd nitpick about grammar. There doesn't need to be a comma after "Simply". That's an adverb, not an introductory phrase. Still, your edit left the post better than you found it, which is the cardinal command. None of that noise you removed was helping anyone find or understand the answer.

   Again, it seems that the person who rolled back your edit was operating out of extremely bad faith. They know what a good edit looks like, and ultimately made one (revision #5). However, rather than trying to make the site better, their initial edit was just trying to undo your edits. This is not constructive. Fortunately, it ended well—largely thanks to this very discussion.

7. The edit you linked here is the same as edit #3—no fair in getting credit twice for the same edit!

Your edits look fine, and other answers already talk about that. I just wanted to raise a few points.

Some people have mentioned that edits should only be made when they are desperately needed. If the question and the answer(s) can be understood, then no editing is required.

This is wrong on many levels, allow me to explain myself.

Take the below answer, which is similar to this edit:

Hey there! Welcome to Stack Overflow. I had the same problem as you

The code isn't working because [java techy stuff here].

Here is the code to solve the problem:

smart java code here

That should do it.

Hope this helps!

Now, already as an editor, I see a lot of mistakes. "Hope this helps!" is just meta fluff and should be removed.

There is also unnecessary text that the post can do without. It makes the post more streamlined and better for future readers to read. Why would a future reader care if the answerer had the same problem? Why would the answerer care if the question asker is new to SO?

Also, it's innately obvious that the code in the answer will solve the problem. There is no need to state the obvious. Just keep it short and sweet.

The post should be edited into this:

Hey there! Welcome to Stack Overflow. I had the same problem as you

The code isn't working because [java techy stuff here].

Here is the code to solve the problem: ¹

smart code here

That should do it

Hope this helps!

After editing, the answer is so much easier to read for many people. This is the kind of thing SO exists for: collaborative editing. When you post an answer, it's not really yours when you post it. It's everyone's to edit and get help from. Technically you have the post and you benefit when people upvote the answer, but apart from that it is no longer yours. It is Stack Overflow's answer, under the CC-BY-SA license.

The age of the question is also irrelevant. We edit any question or answer that can be improved upon.

As stated in the help center, when you post a question or answer, it is free to be edited by anyone.

_{1 It's OK to have that line there, it’s your choice.}