https://superuser.com/review/suggested-edits/728281

I made an edit to this question, which I personally considered to be a huge improvement in readability but to my surprise it not only got rejected for "does not make the post even a little bit easier to read", but the author rejected it too, commenting "I will not be accepting modifications to this answer. The formatting I used is very specific"

I thought my changes were a big improvement.

Original answer starts like this (in the edit box)

Step 1:
> In the Registry, go to the key
> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Synaptics\SynTP\Defaults, and set the
> value of all string entries of the form `PalmKms…`, to 0.  These
> values determine the amount of ms that the touchpad stays disabled
> after keyboard input has been detected.

Which gets rendered as:

Step 1:

In the Registry, go to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Synaptics\SynTP\Defaults, and set the value of all string entries of the form PalmKms…, to 0. These values determine the amount of ms that the touchpad stays disabled after keyboard input has been detected.

Right away I see a few problems:

1. I'm not sure why they used > on every line instead of concatenating all of them in a single paragraph, because that's essentially what it does (that's what I usually do). I thought to myself could the author have perhaps actually intended to have them in separate lines but didn't realize that's not actually what's being rendered.

2. I also put the registry key on its own line

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Synaptics\SynTP\Defaults
   

so that it could be selected easily by just triple clicking (not sure if many people are familiar with this).

It also makes selecting less error prone to accidentally selecting the surrounding text.

Next in the answer the author writes

Step 2:
> 1. Type WIN+R and start "regedit"
> 2. Confirm that you're an admin (a window may pop up).

Again, I see a few problems:

1. The user has already been instructed to edit registry prior to this step, so this basic step to open "regedit" seem redundant. Or it should be put at the beginning.

2. Same thing with putting the registry keys on their own line.

After these steps there's one more registry modification step, but it seems optional.

Overall the answer didn't seem like it had a "structure" which is what I tried to give. I'm struggling to understand whether it's this very intention which was unwelcome or if I made some other minor mistakes in carrying it out.

The author's comment "The formatting I used is very specific" is also what's puzzling me because like I said, I can't see what purpose this specific formatting might achieve. Does "steps" help in google search results? I googled the question but the answer doesn't appear as "steps".

Consider:

https://superuser.com/review/suggested-edits/728281

I made an edit to this question, which I personally considered to be a huge improvement in readability, but to my surprise it not only got rejected for "does not make the post even a little bit easier to read", but the author rejected it too, commenting "I will not be accepting modifications to this answer. The formatting I used is very specific"

I thought my changes were a big improvement.

Original answer starts like this (in the edit box)

Step 1:
> In the Registry, go to the key
> HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Synaptics\SynTP\Defaults, and set the
> value of all string entries of the form `PalmKms…`, to 0.  These
> values determine the amount of ms that the touchpad stays disabled
> after keyboard input has been detected.

Which gets rendered as:

Step 1:

In the Registry, go to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Synaptics\SynTP\Defaults, and set the value of all string entries of the form PalmKms…, to 0. These values determine the amount of ms that the touchpad stays disabled after keyboard input has been detected.

Right away I see a few problems:

1. I'm not sure why they used > on every line instead of concatenating all of them in a single paragraph, because that's essentially what it does (that's what I usually do). I thought to myself: Could the author have perhaps actually intended to have them in separate lines, but didn't realize that's not actually what's being rendered?

2. I also put the registry key on its own line

    HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Synaptics\SynTP\Defaults
   

so that it could be selected easily by just triple clicking (not sure if many people are familiar with this).

It also makes selecting less error prone to accidentally selecting the surrounding text.

Next in the answer the author writes

Step 2:
> 1. Type WIN+R and start "regedit"
> 2. Confirm that you're an admin (a window may pop up).

Again, I see a few problems:

1. The user has already been instructed to edit registry prior to this step, so this basic step to open "regedit" seem redundant. Or it should be put at the beginning.

2. Same thing with putting the registry keys on their own line.

After these steps there's one more registry modification step, but it seems optional.

Overall the answer didn't seem like it had a "structure" which is what I tried to give. I'm struggling to understand whether it's this very intention which was unwelcome or if I made some other minor mistakes in carrying it out.

The author's comment "The formatting I used is very specific" is also what's puzzling me because like I said, I can't see what purpose this specific formatting might achieve. Does "steps" help in google search results? I googled the question but the answer doesn't appear as "steps".