40

I suggested an edit for an answer that looked a bit messy to me because it had full URLs, and it was rejected under the following:

"This edit did not correct critical issues with the post - view the revision history to see what should have been changed."

I understand, I actually upvoted the answer because it's a good answer; I was just bugged by the formatting. Other than that, the answer needed no more edits; it was understandable and well written.

I went and check the new revision thinking I might have missed something only to see that the consequent edit was practically the same edit I suggested.

I don't edit solely for the reputation (although it's a small incentive being under 1K), I probably have under 50 edit suggestions in 5ish months; and I'm sure high-rep users can see my edit suggestion history, I try to keep my suggestions as objective as possible. The +2 rep gain is just a trading for having a post with clear and good content from the OP. But I don't understand why this particular high-rep user would reject my suggestion only to make the same edit. (BTW, the OP wasn't the one posting the new edit, that is what throws me off.)

Is it okay to reject and edit only to make the same edit you just rejected?

13
  • 1
    It's possible that the person saw something else in need of editing, meant to hit "Improve edit" and accidentally hit the reject button and then edited it. Dec 18, 2015 at 3:47
  • 4
    @DavidHoelzer I honestly doubt that. There's a note right there when you're editing the question as well.
    – Zizouz212
    Dec 18, 2015 at 4:26
  • Well if that were the case I wouldn't mind the reject and edit if something in my edit was actually improved @DavidHoelzer
    – Just Do It
    Dec 18, 2015 at 5:03
  • Had the same thing happen with one of my suggestions and this new revision.
    – Tot Zam
    Dec 18, 2015 at 5:38
  • 1
    Perhaps arcyqwerty attempted to make that exact same edit just as you submitted your edit. If so, it was a bit mean of them to "steal" your edit like that, IMHO. OTOH, I've occasionally done similar things when editing questions (eg putting code into a code block), but I feel that it can be justified to improve a question ASAP rather than having to wait for 2 other reviewers to approve it.
    – PM 2Ring
    Dec 18, 2015 at 6:25
  • 1
    (cont) But I'd never do that on an answer edit, since they aren't time-critical, and generally I'd post the edit suggestion as a comment, especially if it's a fresh answer, since IME it can be somewhat annoying to have an edit suggestion pop up while you're in the middle of improving your own answer.
    – PM 2Ring
    Dec 18, 2015 at 6:26
  • Having reviewed the edit, I retract my first suggestion. This looks completely uncalled for. Dec 18, 2015 at 11:41
  • @arcyqwerty can you please make it clear? Dec 18, 2015 at 19:00
  • It's done @manetsus , in the end the post was improved as intended. I'm just a bit bothered that there was no actual improvement in addition to my rejected suggestion.
    – Just Do It
    Dec 18, 2015 at 19:30
  • 12
    Ok, I'm not sure what exactly happened here. I generally only reject + edit if the edit made things harder to fix than using improve + edit (which preserves edit history). Did you by any chance edit twice? I agree as it currently appears, rejecting should not have been the correct action. Apologies for rejecting your edit!
    – arcyqwerty
    Dec 18, 2015 at 20:33
  • 5
    @arcyqwerty It's possible you just clicked the wrong button. Kudos to you for apologizing, and kudos to the OP for addressing this politely and professionally.
    – jpmc26
    Dec 18, 2015 at 23:25
  • 3
    All good, in the end we both got what we wanted, a clearer/neat answer. I just wanted to address it for future references @arcyqwerty
    – Just Do It
    Dec 18, 2015 at 23:46
  • There was some talk on meta a while back that suggested higher rep users should use the reject & edit button to teach lower rep users not to make minor edits. IIRC this was before "the powers that be" accepted that even minor improvements actually add value to the site, so we were being asked to punish users who made minor edits. e.g. this, this Dec 20, 2015 at 9:44

2 Answers 2

20

First off, don't listen to the reason. It's the placeholder reason that exists when an edit is rejected and subsequently edited, and can't be changed by the reviewer.

In my opinion, the edit should not have been rejected at all. I'm generally a fairly harsh reviewer, but the fact that someone rejected that, and didn't do anything to show why it was rejected through example is just shameful.

Don't let this discourage you: edits, even if rejected, are great signals to higher-rep users about posts that could be improved. Keep editing :)

1
  • 3
    "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity." Probably should give the person the benefit of the doubt unless we see a pattern or something.
    – jpmc26
    Dec 18, 2015 at 23:26
9

Is it okay to reject and edit only to make the same edit you just rejected?

I guess that depends on the intent and the actual edit.

To know the intent, the best you can hope for is ask the reviewer. Note that since they have edited the post, you can add a comment to it with @ and they will receive notification of your comment. So you can ask them about their intent there, if you like.


As far as the edit goes: in this case, I would agree 100% that the edit the user ultimately made was not very different from your own. But it did add back-ticks per normal SO convention for language elements (like reserved words, user-defined names like methods, classes, variables, etc.), which your edit did not.

It's plausible that the editor (who has only recently received the privilege to review suggested edits) is still learning the review queue UI and might be unfamiliar with the difference between "Improve Edit" and "Reject and Edit". Perhaps all they really meant to do was add the back-ticks, but then found themselves having to redo the entire edit because they accidentally clicked the wrong review button for their purpose, with your edit being collateral damage of their mistake.


I think that obviously, it is not okay to intentionally reject an edit for the express purpose of then making the exact same edit that one has just rejected. But I would also say that it's always worth giving the benefit of the doubt when the situation is less clear-cut than that (as this situation is). It is entirely possible that no malice was intended here, and of course the broader goal of improving Stack Overflow has been achieved, to however minor a degree over even your own edit. :)

3
  • If it were me and I saw a generally good edit but noticed that other things could be added (like backticks) to make it even better, I would accept their edit, then add my own edit to introduce the backticks.
    – Kevin
    Jan 11, 2016 at 16:13
  • You are totally right, my mistake, I didn't see that you had already mentioned that
    – Kevin
    Jan 11, 2016 at 18:24
  • @Kevin: no problem...glad I didn't miss something. Jan 11, 2016 at 22:13

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