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Etiquette: Editing other people's posts

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    What should the policy be on editing other people's posts to fix typos? This is something that I often do, and I realized that it might bother some people (although nobody has ever complained that I've done it before). Does the community have an opinion on this?

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    As long as they're obviously typos (e.g. spelling mistakes), I think it's fine. Where it's at all unclear what the poster intended, comments asking for clarification seem better.

    On a related note, I've noticed fpqc among others editing LaTeX to make the math in questions more readable. As a reader I wholeheartedly approve of this, and as a poster I wouldn't mind either.
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    By the way, since some other recent meta threads have pointed out the value of making posts easily googleable for future generations, it's worth pointing out that fixing typos is in the service of this goal.
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    In fact, I would encourage everyone to 'be bold' when editing. If you can justify your edits as improving the page for future users arriving there, and you don't distort meaning or do anything obviously provocative, I'm pretty willing to try to calm down any hypothetical provoked original writers.

    Indeed, I often (used to) rewrite question titles pretty thoroughly, and I'd encourage more people to do this. This more we can downplay the culture of "this is my inviolate text, corrections, modifications or criticisms are unacceptable" and instead have a culture of collaboratively preparing the best possible answers to the most interesting possible questions, the better mathoverflow will be.

    • CommentAuthorRegenbogen
    • CommentTimeMar 11th 2010 edited
     

    @Scott: I have objection to your interventionist policy. For example you community-wikied a question I really didn't want to.

    But of course, spelling, grammar corrections, LaTeX fixes are all perfectly ok. I never found a problem with fpqc's edits so far(maybe there are ambiguities sometimes in retagging; but nothing significant).

    • CommentAuthorHarry Gindi
    • CommentTimeMar 11th 2010 edited
     

    Scott has certain privileges that we don't have (community-wikiing a post, for instance, is his call), but he is not talking about that here (we also went over why it was community wiki'd in another thread on meta). What he is talking about here is specifically correcting errors and fixing typos, making a post more readable, clarifying things, etc.

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    @Regenbogen, as fpqc says, I'm talking about what everyone should be doing with the editing powers. I understand that you think I misused my moderator powers in that situation.

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    I have (once or twice) edited a question after receiving clarification from the OP in the comments. Some newbies apparently don't realize that they can or should edit their question in such cases.

    • CommentAuthorgrp
    • CommentTimeMar 22nd 2010
     
    Here is a conservative, anti-editing viewpoint.

    Meaning is a tricky thing. There may be times when a certain thing that looks like a typo is not. Also, in a typesetting language like TeX, it is possible that a single bit change (smaller than a character change) will radically alter not just the bit, or the character, or the containing word or phrase, but the entire post. In extreme cases it can affect entities outside the post. Someone who has thousands of hours editing copy may be able to make many changes properly, but even they are not immune to making improper changes. I say that scientific editing, even typo correction, is not for the novice or even the one with little experience.

    Now, to ameliorate the above, if one is able to view the original and a particular edited version side by side, so that such questions of appropriate editing can be resolved by the reader, then the hazards of editing become less. Even if all there is is the capacity to undo a sequence of edits, then community editing can be encouraged. If MathOverflow is going to be a resource of high-calibre, however, there should be more accountability in the editing process.

    Gerhard "Ask Me About System Design" Paseman, 2010.03.22
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    @Gerhard: There are bugs with jSMath that cause things to be displayed incorrectly and break the page, for example.
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    @grp You can see past versions by checking the edit history. Click on the time of the edit.
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    Multiple edits within 5 minutes of each other do not show up as separate versions though.
    • CommentAuthorgrp
    • CommentTimeMar 22nd 2010
     
    @fpqc Indeed. The anti-editing viewpoint would support the meaning conveyed by the broken page. A less extreme point of view would counsel for defensive writing, so that small changes in one part of a post do not propagate very far, and thus meaning would remain largely preserved in the face of edits. I proposed the extreme viewpoint to remind people that editing is more than a courtesy; it is a responsibility that potentially has greater impact than one initially realizes. I provided the ameliorative paragraph to suggest how hazardous impact can be reduced.

    @DZ I am still discovering features. I will check out the review feature you mentioned; thanks for telling me.

    Gerhard "Ask Me About System Design" Paseman, 2010.03.22

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