7

I like to improve the site where I can; one of my many SEDE queries looks for common typos. Ideally, I would fill some smallish amount of time going through those posts and correcting the typos. When I find posts to edit, I do my best to polish them up the best I can (adding formatting and other grammatical improvements for readability).

The side effect I'm asking about here is on the Active Questions view/tab on the site. Currently, I try to limit myself to 3-5 edits per sitting, so as not to flood the page.

I would like to edit more posts than that per-sitting, if I have time, but I don't want to upset people's view into the site. Sunday mornings are a favorite of mine, mainly because the SEDE data is the freshest then, but I often tackle the edits during the week as well.

Do you enjoy the active questions view? How many batch-edited posts in a row would be reasonable for you to see? Are there times of the Stack Exchange day where my batch-editing would more-avoid your ire?

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  • The question is not really how active users who participate on meta enjoy the active question view, but how many people total care about that view. Meta is a small, non-representative sample of site users. – Gilles 'SO- stop being evil' Mar 10 '18 at 2:43
  • That’s a good clarification; thank you. I can also only interact with Meta users, not all users, so I’ll take what I can get. – Jeff Schaller Mar 10 '18 at 2:47
  • You make me curious what common typos you look for.... – Wildcard Mar 12 '18 at 19:53
  • @Wildcard short version, I ran aspell on the December U&L datadump, added 3117 overrides/exceptions to aspell, then re-ran it & sorted the remainders by frequency. I combined that with an existing query I had and ended up with this SEDE query: Posts with typos; younger than X days, scoring at least Y – Jeff Schaller Mar 12 '18 at 23:37
  • FWIW, I always use the Active Questions view (50 per page) and I'm never bothered by batch-mode editing. Worst case scenario I have to visit the previous page(s) to see what happened before the edits but really, I can't imagine why people would have a problem scrolling a few pages back and forth. As to when to do your edits, I'm sure you'll never agree with the person on the other side of the pond. You're doing a great job 👍 – don_crissti Mar 15 '18 at 19:34
3

I mainly use the Main Page of the site rather than the Active Questions view. These are similar but the Main Page only has one page of questions on it.

Editing multiple questions in batches would potentially push new questions off the Main Page.

Whenever I notice that someone is going through a batch of questions/answers with edits, I always switch to the Newest Questions view.

I do find it mildly annoying when this happens, but this is definitely balanced with the knowledge that someone cares enough about something to edit questions and answers (which I think is a good thing to do).

My personal view is that you should do as many edits as you think are necessary, especially if the edits are substantial, but maybe not too many "single character typo" edits in batch.


I don't know how most people who answers questions here use the site. Some may do what I do and look through the Main Page occasionally, and these would have the same "problem" as I have with batch edits. These users probably know how to switch to another view to find active questions. Others may primarily use the alternative views, the system of tags, and/or plain text searches to find interesting questions to answer. These users would not have the same issue with batch edits.

Users who ask questions are unlikely to be bothered with batch edits in the same way, if at all. And people who look for answers and questions with issues similar to their own (these, I think, are the largest group of site users) will likewise probably not be bothered by batch edits at all as they would use the search box or arrive at the site through search engine hits.

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  • Thank you for chiming in. Some of the posts I uncover for editing do only need small changes. If 4-6 edits per "batch" seem reasonable, then I'll be patient and continue with that framing. – Jeff Schaller Mar 12 '18 at 16:36

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