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I recently had a question get a bunch of downvotes (presumably for clarity) because after I wrote it, someone else came behind me and edited it.

In doing so, they removed a couple of pertinent details (such as it being an Android question).

Why is this allowed?

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  • If you think pertinent data has been removed, decline the edit or improve it. – Paulie_D Jun 20 '18 at 14:23
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    None of your questions have any downvotes, and the only edit to a question of yours removed unnecessary whitespace. It didn't remove any actual content. – Servy Jun 20 '18 at 14:24
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    I assume this is a deleted question? – Paulie_D Jun 20 '18 at 14:25
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    Not any person is allowed to do this, only "trusted" people, people with enough reputation on the site that the site gives them permission to do so. If you disagree with the changes, you can revert them, but since you're new, do try to see the changes as an attempt to improve your question, and try to look for why the changes were done. – Hovercraft Full Of Eels Jun 20 '18 at 14:25
  • @Paulie_D not sure if deleted posts still count towards the reputation graph on the activity page, if they do then I cant see it being a deleted post – WhatsThePoint Jun 20 '18 at 14:26
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    The word "Android" was removed from your question title because it's not needed. The question is tagged with an Android tag. – Andy Jun 20 '18 at 14:27
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    This has nothing to do with the graph...the user has no negatively voted questions visible – Paulie_D Jun 20 '18 at 14:27
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    Not knowing the basics of how SO works after being a member for 6 months is a problem you have to solve yourself. Read through the Help Center, your question is specifically covered in this article. – Hans Passant Jun 20 '18 at 14:28
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    @Paulie_D I know, we mortals cannot see deleted posts but if the deleted posts with lots of downvotes still counted towards the graph we would see the rep change – WhatsThePoint Jun 20 '18 at 14:28
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    I'm tempted to edit this question because I can! :) – Paulie_D Jun 20 '18 at 14:29
  • they DO count. I had 15 rep before. Now i have 13. Perhaps i've been a so member for 6 months, but my 13 rep tells you i haven't been using it until recently. I have another forum i use where i have been a member for ten years and have thousands of rep. However they are specifically aimed at visual basic and i develop in java, html, and c# now so i needed to change forums. – John Lord Jun 21 '18 at 14:49
  • Well, there's the first misunderstanding; we're not a forum. We have incredibly different standards than the vast majority of the internet. I'd recommend taking the tour to gain an understanding of how we work. – fbueckert Jun 21 '18 at 14:54
  • Sometimes there are voices to send these OPs back to the elementary school, but the SE doesn't tolerate the concept. They see it as a violation of the "be nice" policy. Thus, I only can you suggest to read this. – peterh - Reinstate Monica Jun 23 '18 at 22:49
  • i'm not sure if it's rank-adjusted, but i was not only not able to refuse the edit, i didn't even know about it. As a higher rank user now, i've been given the options to refuse edits. – John Lord Nov 29 '18 at 16:34
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I assume you're talking about this question (currently deleted - screenshot for others' benefit):

Three revisions: one removes Android from the title, the next (by a different editor) fixes several grammatical errors and adds some unnecessary code formatting, the third (by the author) rewrites the question extensively and re-adds android to the title.

The first edit was indeed rather pointless: they removed the subject area from the title and left the typo next to it, leaving it wholly worse.

The second edit was mostly good: it fixed several minor errors in both the post and title. It also introduced some superfluous code formatting, which... is a perplexing style that numerous authors and editors seem to cling to in spite of frequent urging to stop doing it.

The goal of editing is to allow posts to improve over time rather than leaving errors to distract generations of future readers. However, not everyone knows how to make useful edits. Revision #3 exemplifies why we need editing, while revision #2 exemplifies why we need the asker - you - to retain editorial oversight on their own posts.

The correct response in this case is shown by revision #4: you re-wrote the post, leaving the grammatical corrections in place while dropping the superfluous formatting and restoring critical detail. This is the essence of collaboration: accepting useful input from others while discarding what is not useful.

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    I would also argue that the edit comment of revision #4 contradicts the Be nice policy but that is out of scope for the question – WhatsThePoint Jun 20 '18 at 14:39
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    I assume the author simply mistook the editor's name for an onomatopoeic reference to a classic motorcycle engine. – Shog9 Jun 20 '18 at 14:42
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    The first edit is a poster example of a knee-jerk "tag in title" edit. I'm not surprised the editor ignored the typo right beside the keyword they removed - they were probably so fixated on the "tag in title" that they didn't even notice it. Sure, we can roll these types of edits back, but it's very frustrating that we have to deal with them in the first place. I completely empathize with the asker's sentiments. – BoltClock Jun 20 '18 at 15:17
  • ok so you are saying that the tag would be "android" but when people are reading questions to answer i suspect they don't peruse the tags. – John Lord Jun 21 '18 at 14:46
  • They do, but that's no reason not to work the topic into the title "organically" (as part of a sentence, as you did), @john. The problem, as BoltClock notes, is folks trying to enforce standards intended to prevent titles that just lead with a big ol pile of keywords. – Shog9 Jun 21 '18 at 15:30
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This is allowed because Stack Overflow is a collaborative site. You agreed to this when you posted your question.

If you believe edits are making the question worse, you can roll it back, but be sure that it actually is making the question worse. Quite often, editors are more familiar with the mores and quirks of the site, and have a good reason for removing things.

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  • rolling it back doesn't give the downvotes back. if i had 500 rep it wouldn't matter but i lost the ability to leave comments over the two downvotes. I'm a little confused in general about the practice of downvoting questions. – John Lord Jun 21 '18 at 14:44
  • Downvotes only matter for commenting if you were close to 50 rep, which you're not. Otherwise, you're allowed to comment on your own posts, regardless of rep. – fbueckert Jun 21 '18 at 14:48
  • well i just looked and suddenly i no longer have questions or answers AT ALL besides this one? – John Lord Jun 21 '18 at 14:53
  • You're looking on Meta. Meta and SO main are different. On main, it looks like you've got two questions and five answers. – fbueckert Jun 21 '18 at 14:54

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