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So far I've reviewed about 15 edit suggestions, 3 of these I rejected. All for the same reason. Deviating from the OP's intent.

This one:

edit 1

This would be a fine edit from the OP, but not from another user. THe comment part is okay (the OP replied in comments with "a simple reason will suffice, but I don't think it's too broad"), but the "to address some of the comments..." is not okay. It's basically pretending to be the OP and doing something under his name.

Next one:

edit 2

This one is closer to okay, but still not. The title edit is fine, but the last paragraph, again, is basically pretending to be the OP. That's not cool. It's mostly the "pretending to be the OP" part that I'm talking about here.

Also note that both of these questions were in the process of being closed, but that doesn't really matter. It explains the motivations, but it's still not allowed.

Last one:

edit 3

The editor also left a comment saying "@AlexanderRossa I hope you appreciate the image I'm adding!". (just noting this, it doesn't really make much of a difference)

This is a fun image, but there's three problems. First, it's completely unrelated to the question part, i.e. the "how can I do this" part. It's only tangential to the subject matter anyway.

Second, SE hates fun. Fun(ny) images don't below in questions.

Third, like the earlier examples, it simply deviates from the original question. If the OP added it, I'd edit it out due to the first two reasons though.

Why is this a big deal? Because we currently have 4 users with the ability to review suggested edits. (almost 5!) Each edit takes at least 2 people to review, unless one person clicks the "improve edit" or "reject and edit" button. Yes, the OP can approve it and only one edit is required, but failing that...

Let's not waste the time of the few reviewers we have, eh?

9
  • I think deviating from intent is pretty much always a reason to reject, but sometimes drastic edits can be justified (for example, OP puts their self-answer into the question and abandons the post. The correct action imho would be to remove the answer part from the question, and make it into a community wiki answer) so I disagree with the wording of your title, although I fully agree with everything else in this post
    – Zanna Mod
    Feb 2, 2017 at 22:01
  • @Zanna yes, I'll reword the title.
    – Riker
    Feb 2, 2017 at 22:20
  • Well, if OP agrees to the edits, what right do others have to reject it saying "deviating from OP's intent" – IMO, we should try to wait until OP has a chance to review the edit especially if it's a closed question. Now if OP is absent from the site for a while, then yes, one could reject it.
    – user38
    Feb 2, 2017 at 22:21
  • @sv. doesn't matter. SE policy is not to make edits likes this, without explicit permission from the OP to do it. Retroactive permission does not work.
    – Riker
    Feb 2, 2017 at 22:22
  • @EasterlyIrk "Retroactive permission does not work." -- interesting, please point me to this rule.
    – user38
    Feb 2, 2017 at 22:23
  • 3
    @sv. I really hate it when people ask me to "hold off" or "wait for OP" on any kind of reviewing. SE is designed so that we do not have to do that. AFAIK OP will always get a notification about a suggested edit even if it has already been rejected, so they could apply the edit if they liked it. Edits can always be rolled back, improved, re-edited.
    – Zanna Mod
    Feb 2, 2017 at 22:32
  • @sv. think about it: why would there be a default close reason for "deviates from the author's intent" if retroactive permission counted? It might be a custom close one, but the fact that it's a default reason implies that it's common.
    – Riker
    Feb 2, 2017 at 22:42
  • I agree with the question, but I think those usernames could have been removed from the pictures.
    – Ramon Melo
    Feb 3, 2017 at 0:11
  • @RamonMelo bit late now, but it doesn't really matter. You can also click the links and view them.
    – Riker
    Feb 3, 2017 at 0:38

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
2

I disagree with your assessment ("unwarranted" and "drastic") on two of my edit suggestions for following reasons:

SE rules on editing clearly say:

  1. To clarify the meaning of the post (without changing that meaning)

  2. To include additional information only found in comments, so all of the information relevant to the post is contained in one place

Edit 1:

I simply added the OP's comment from below the post into the question itself which is exactly what SE rule #2 says.

Edit 2:

OP already says "Are there any scientific publications..." in the very first line. Yet the title ("How much money would we save...") makes it sound like an opinion-based question and too broad so I just tried put that into the question title (see rule #1 above, clarify meaning of the post).

Before rejecting an edit or voting to close a question, think of this situation:

If a new user joins a site and doesn't know all the SE rules and then a few high-rep users try to close down the question as fast as they can without trying to improve the post and make it more acceptable, new users will stop participating on this site.

Our goal in beta should be to edit and make posts more acceptable. SE rules are not meant to make life difficult for users!

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  • 1
    You added more than the comment in edit #1. You removed the "vegan" part from the title, which alone is a big change in the subject. And edit #2, the main problem IMO was that your edit "pretended" to be from the OP, which is clearly wasn't. I'll clarify that in my quesiton.
    – Riker
    Feb 2, 2017 at 23:09
  • 1
    @EasterlyIrk Both are experienced SO users, and, as such, familiar with the tools at their disposal. If they were dissatisfied with the outcome, they could just rollback. Assuming all the edited content indeed comes from the comments, don't you think it's positive for our community to have fuzzy questions fixed more quickly?
    – Ramon Melo
    Feb 3, 2017 at 0:26
  • 4
    @RamonMelo It's not all from the comments, that's the problem.
    – Riker
    Feb 3, 2017 at 0:38

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