tea.mathoverflow.net - Discussion Feed (Could we have a check box for non-perking "minor" edits?)

Todd Trimble comments on "Could we have a check box for non-perking "minor" edits?" (13760)

2011-03-22T13:56:10-07:00

Were we able to implement such changes, a reasonable system to prevent the abuse that Kevin Buzzard remarks on would be to only have the "minor edit" box available to those with high reputation, or in fact only to the original poster of the question or answer being edited (or both).

High reputation is no guarantee against jerky behavior. So, if one day there should be a minor edit button which doesn't create a bump, I'd hope it would be available only to the OP.

Kevin Buzzard comments on "Could we have a check box for non-perking "minor" edits?" (13759)

2011-03-22T13:17:52-07:00

Yeah good point DL: the other reason it will never happen is that it is impossible to edit the software :-) If we ask the people who wrote the software to edit it they say "upgrade instead" and this seems to be something that people are reluctant to do.

DL comments on "Could we have a check box for non-perking "minor" edits?" (13758)

2011-03-22T12:52:23-07:00

Were we able to implement such changes, a reasonable system to prevent the abuse that Kevin Buzzard remarks on would be to only have the "minor edit" box available to those with high reputation, or in fact only to the original poster of the question or answer being edited (or both).

Kevin Buzzard comments on "Could we have a check box for non-perking "minor" edits?" (13757)

2011-03-22T12:44:03-07:00

Since this old chestnut seems to have been bumped, I'll remind people of the standard answer to this question: the problem is that if there were a minor edit check box then one day someone will find out to their horror that a perfectly reasonable question they asked a year or so ago was edited to say "ha ha ha I am a total retard" (or indeed perhaps *all* their questions were edited in this way, by someone with a personal vendetta against them), the "minor edit" check box was ticked, so no-one noticed, and by the time someone who realises what has happened notices, the damage has been done [hundreds of people have seen a silly post with this person's name attached to it].

The point is that if I'm not reading MO in 2 years' time, I don't want to be a victim of such a fraud, but I trust the system: if someone tried this to me, the question would be bumped to the front page, the vandalism would be noted instantly, and someone would roll back the edit and report the user. So the current system is actually really good!

grp comments on "Could we have a check box for non-perking "minor" edits?" (13754)

2011-03-22T11:45:20-07:00

It is often fruitless to suggest that people change their behaviour.

Anyway, one alternative is to post your question/answer on faketestsite.stackexchange.com (if I remember the URL properly), and tweak it there, AND THEN WAIT, and then post it once you feel enough tweaks have been made. The waiting part is hard, I know, but it does allow you to satisfy some of the OCD tendencies without disturbing the MathOverflow community at large. (It might bother those who follow faketestsite, but those people should not be bothered by question reordering there.)

Gerhard "Sometimes Tilts At Behavioral Windmills" Paseman, 2011.03.22

Kelly Davis comments on "Could we have a check box for non-perking "minor" edits?" (13753)

2011-03-22T11:03:23-07:00

I wish there were a "minor edit" check box too. Sometimes I just want to fix a minor typo in a question without alerting the entire world.

David Zureick-Brown comments on "Could we have a check box for non-perking "minor" edits?" (518)

2009-11-19T08:55:28-08:00

I wish the arXiv had this feature too...

David Speyer comments on "Could we have a check box for non-perking "minor" edits?" (510)

2009-11-19T06:20:48-08:00

I asked a very similar question over on meta.SE; it sounds like the answer is no.

Jon Awbrey comments on "Could we have a check box for non-perking "minor" edits?" (507)

2009-11-19T00:54:46-08:00

Is there any easy way to set-up a "minor edit" check box so that all of us more error-prone but still OCD types can correct our many typos and other stylistic infelicities without the edit percolating to the top of the leader board?