Existing questions and answers on this site can be edited by anyone.
- What are community edits?
- What are the reasons people edit others' posts?
- What are some examples of particular types of edits?
asked Oct 20, 2016 at 12:32
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1 Answer
What are community edits?
This is a community site, and as such - posts on this site are the shared responsibility of the community at large.
It is important you realise the difference from say a more traditional "forum" technology, where only moderators can edit or even remove content.
Start by reading the general guide on community edits.
While using this site you will sometimes (maybe often) find that your posts, questions and answers alike, get minor edits done to them. You will be notified and in some circumstances also be given an option to reject the edit.
Before habitually or for any other reason you decide you might want to reject an edit, please take some time to understand what this process is and why we do it.
Why do we do them?
As a user of this site - most likely you come here because a) You're experiencing a problem and you've Googled for a solution which led you here. Alternatively, b) You are experiencing a problem and have found no solution for it. You've heard that all the Sitecore knowledge in the world roams around here, with enthusiasts ready to share their expertise with you on a moment's notice. Or c) you are here because you are dedicated to the substantial community effort it is to build and maintain content for the site. Or you fall somewhere in between.
Whatever the reason; you come here, you raise your question or problem, you find a solution and you move on. Excellent :-)
But what happens then?
See the whole point of a Q&A site like this, is to 1) present high quality content and 2) make sure people can find the content. As a bi-note, we also aim to make the content as accessible as possible, encourage the use of images as appropriate, use syntax highlighting for code snippets and so on.
And that's where the community edits come in.
Question Titles
The community at large will help you (and the rest of the community) by (sometimes) editing your posts for clarity and/or searchability. Consider as an example, the 2 following headlines:
"Problem with WFFM"
"Problem with WFFM - System.Net.Protocol.ProtocolNotFoundException when using SendMail submit action"
Only one of them stands a reasonable chance of ever being found by another user experiencing the same problem. At least without a significant searching effort.
So we sometimes edit question titles. For this reason.
Content Edits
Another thing the community tidies up, is wrongfully named technologies. Like, for instance, replacing "How can I get this data out of my Analytics Database" when in fact the question is about the "Experience Database" and relates to MongoDB. We don't do this to correct you or tell you that you're wrong - we simply do it for searchability. To keep common terms consistent and make our content easier to find in the future.
Tag Edits
Same thing applies for tags. We try as best we can, to keep tags consistent across the site. All to make it easier for the community to find, monitor, react on specific types of content. As in all areas of technology, we have users who specialise in for instance SOLR, MongoDB, Link Analyzer and many similar Sitecore technologies. Consistent tagging of content to these well established tags, again makes it easier to locate content or even get desktop or mobile push notifications when new questions pop up in a particular user's area of expertise.
Quality of life edits
Lastly; we edit posts for quality of life. This includes adding syntax highlighting to code snippets, sometimes break a long block of text up in multiple segments for readability, sometimes add a headline or section headline. These efforts doesn't do a whole lot for searchability; but it does make for an overall better reading experience when visiting the site and enjoying its content.
What we don't do; and reasons to reject an edit
We don't change the significance of your content however. While theoretically possible, community editors take care as to not alter what you wrote in any significant way, change the meaning or intent of what you wrote, or in any way alter who you are and what you contributed. They do it to help you and the community, that's the only reason.
Community editing, reviewing and so on, takes significant time and effort. It's important to keep this in mind. Every edit has a reason. And it's done for the benefit of all who come visit us here.
So unless the ground rules were broken; an edit broke your post, detracted from your original point or in any way makes the post misrepresent what your intention was; appreciate the effort someone put into it. The community editor liked your post enough to want to make it even better. And in the end, that's what will keep everyone coming back to here, in the long run.