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I don't like to point the finger at people, but I think this guy has been making a lot of edits lately, many of them either incorrect or too minor, IMO.

See revision 5 on https://tex.stackexchange.com/posts/195610/revisions: the title was improved (good), but the TeXstudio tag was added and the word was made bold in the question; however, this is unwarranted because TeXstudio is sort of irrelevant here. This example is typical of his recent edit frenzy (probably a side-effect of the site's review badges).

What are your thoughts on such edits? And, if you agree that they are questionable, what mechanisms are there to stop such an edit frenzy? Should the guy be contacted directly? If so, how? Is it up to the moderators?

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  • 4
    I've taken a quick look at a selection of the edits here, and while I don't agree with everything I'm also happy about several of them. So I wonder if the problem here is the edits themselves or 'editing rate'. (On the latter, we've had occasions before where it's been useful to remind people to be wary of flooding the main page.)
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    Aug 10, 2014 at 8:34
  • I agree with your remarks, being astonished about some 'silly' editings of old posts, perhaps reviewed a thousand times already. I posted a somewhat connected question some times ago:meta.tex.stackexchange.com/questions/4441/…. What annoys me is the silly 'approval' of some edits, where we have some connection to meta.tex.stackexchange.com/questions/4541/…
    – user31729
    Aug 10, 2014 at 9:14
  • @JosephWright I agree with you: not all edits are bad, but the fact there are so many in such a short time compounds the issue. By what mechanism do you remind one to be wary of flooding the main page? Do @-comments work in this case?
    – jub0bs
    Aug 10, 2014 at 12:45
  • @Jubobs No, @ comments only work if people are already 'active' in the comment thread. As the SE model is primarily based around StackOverflow, the issue of 'front page flooding' is not really covered (SO uses a different algorithm for filling the main page and has a huge level of question asking). Usual solution is using a 'mod ping' from chat.
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    Aug 10, 2014 at 13:09
  • @JosephWright Thanks for clarifying.
    – jub0bs
    Aug 10, 2014 at 14:51
  • @JosephWright They are actually improving since last week. They were absolutely nonsense before that. Maybe public discussion of quality helped maybe not.
    – percusse
    Aug 10, 2014 at 18:12
  • 8
    I didn't know such things going on here! I am sorry for this misunderstanding. I just wanted to make each question/ answer better to read - that's all. :-(. As there is a mandatory peer review, I did some edits in free mind, as anything unnecessary/ wrong edit will be taken care of!
    – hola
    Aug 10, 2014 at 20:57
  • 2
    @pushpen.paul As I've commented, I can see the logic to many of the edits (you might want to take a look at meta.tex.stackexchange.com/questions/2407/… for some of the 'local style guide'). The usual concern with edits is that we get a certain number of new questions per day (~60), so too many edits of older questions can 'distort' the front page. As such, any 'bulk' editing is normally done in a staged fashion (see lockstep's work on retagged, for example).
    – Joseph Wright Mod
    Aug 11, 2014 at 6:25
  • @pushpen.paul In some cases, though, you have changed the meaning of questions rather than simply tidied them up. You certainly should not assume that editing mistakes will be 'taken care of' before they are accepted. Unfortunately, this is not something you can count on at all... And many of your edits seem to be 'too minor' - it would be better to leave a comment in some cases so that the poster can take care of the issue when some more significant editing needs to be done.
    – cfr
    Aug 17, 2014 at 2:02

1 Answer 1

11

As I've mentioned in the comments, there is no automated way to notify an editor or to otherwise 'stem' the flow of edits. This in part reflects the fact that the StackExchange model builds on the requirements of the StackOverflow site, and there the concerns we can have about 'flooding' the front page with edits simply do not apply. (They have thousands of questions per day and also a different algorithm for filling the front page.)

As such, we have to use the tools we do have if there is something to be raised. Obviously meta questions are one tool, but particularly during an ongoing 'edit spree' it's perhaps best to ping the three mods in the chat room (@JosephWright, @StefanKottwitz, @MartinScharrer). Unlike 'normal' users we can chat message any user on the site, so can make a friendly request to watch the number of edits (or indeed anything else) in a short time.

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  • 1
    Just by the way, you can @-ping someone who has successfully edited a post. It won't autocomplete, but if it matches it will ping them. Aug 11, 2014 at 23:45
  • @michaelb958 Thanks. Do you have a source for that?
    – jub0bs
    Aug 12, 2014 at 0:17
  • @Jubobs It's on Meta SE somewhere; I'll try to find it if I have time. (Check the FAQ question for comments.) Aug 12, 2014 at 0:20
  • 2
    @Jubobs How do comment @replies work? at MSE. "You can explicitly notify one (1) other user if they have a current (non-deleted) comment on the post or their name appears anywhere in the revision history".
    – E.P.
    Aug 16, 2014 at 17:37
  • @episanty Thanks :)
    – jub0bs
    Aug 16, 2014 at 22:47

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