Does MO have some explicit policy that encourages edits that are nitpicking? (e.g. correction of typos). Imho such edits should be reserved for more serious matters since, e.g. if a few people fix typos then that may discourage a 4th user from making a more serious correction for fear of bumping the post to CW. Nitpickers should keep in mind that not every typo-laden author has control over such, e.g. I know a few people who have RSI problems so severe that it is a pain (literally) to fix typos, and others who suffer from dyslexia, etc. Such individuals should not have to worry about their posts being pushed into CW much sooner due to the whims of pedantic editors.

Also, please keep in mind that some people will purposely break rules of grammar, punctuation, etc in order to better maintain control of how things are rendered (e.g. contractions needed to keep a sentence from overflowing to another line thus destroying explicitly designed spatial proximity between two semantically connected mathematical items). In fact I do such quite heavily in text-based forums (e.g. usenet newsgroups) and while it is harder to maintain such control say in html, it still can be done to a limited extent. So why risk the possibility of destroying such carefully crafted semantical structure for nitpicking syntactical corrections? After all, we're here to discuss mathematics - not grammar.

@WW Perhaps, but it can also be viewed as requesting a change to the CW thresholds, or to policies around such.

Bill: I just noticed your edit (second paragraph to your original post). Please be advised that the actual rendering of MO depends on the computer, the browser, the operating system, and the fonts installed (thankfully it doesn't depend on the size of the browser window). This behaviour is rather different from what happens in a pure text-based medium. While I understand the desire to use presentation to add emphasis to content, I think any attempts at such is ultimately doomed to failure (this is, generically, a problem of web-based media and why in the past couple of years presentation-intensive websites have gravitated toward Flash).

Also, even if you are advocating for change, the context and the content of this post really suggests to me to be an etiquette issue than a feature issue. I am almost certain that "feature requests" are usually used for technical/technological improvements to the website, as opposed to policy changes.

I guess it wasn't in the FAQ (I'm reasonably certain that I have not read the current revision).

Scott Morrison (one of our moderators) said it in this thread on meta. For those of you just joining us, I am fpqc.

@WW perhaps you missed the part I wrote above "while it is harder to maintain such control say in html, it still can be done to a limited extent". My point is that nitpicking editors should keep in mind that there are some authors who have very strong aesthetics that impact how they choose to display what they write. E.g. not too infrequently I will align proofs so that the syntax makes semantic content transparent, e.g. so that substitutions are obvious, etc. This may seem trite locally, but globally it may contribute to an effect that makes the proof "comprehensible in a single glance" or some similar global goal. This is one of many similar reasons why one should exercise great care when making nitpicking edits. Imho the risk of destroying mathematical semantic content should always be weighed against the value of nitpicking syntactical corrections. I have no qualms whatseover about breaking rules of grammar, punctuation, etc. if it is necessary to make the mathematics more illuminating - kind of a "proof without words that got in the way". If an author explicitly makes such a value judgement, this should be respected by an editor if at all possible.

@Harry: I happen to know several mathematicians who feel even more strongly about such matters than do I. It's not at all unusual for aesthetics to play a large role in how one communicates mathematics.

Anyone who does not want high rep users to edit his/her posts can ask us not to on meta.

I think the solution is clear:
-If you see one of Bill's posts don't edit it.
-Behave exactly as before with respect to all other people's posts.

No one else has complained, and I for one certainly appreciate it when people correct my posts. I don't see anything productive in continuing this discussion further. Clearly Bill feels very strongly on this point, and we're not going to talk him out of it. Nor is he going to convince any of us that this is not an idiosyncratic issue. So let's just let it go.

Another point worth emphasis is that experience plays a role here. Younger members of the MO community who were brought up in a wiki world are quite comfortable with community editing paradigms. But contrast that to say an emeritus professor who joins MO, who is used to having much more control over what he writes. If e.g. some MO undergrad makes some trite syntactical edit to one of the prof's first posts that inadvertently spoils some semantic content then that could possibly scare off the prof. It is important that there be mutual respect for the diverse backgrounds of the entire MO community. Appropriate remarks in the FAQ can help to ensure that members are aware of such issues.

@Noah: clearly we disagree on the importance of such aesthetic matters. But is that any reason to write as you do in your first post above? As the MO community grows larger there will no doubt be further concerns along such lines.

@Noah: In case it was not clear, my purpose here is certainly not to "fight". Frankly I have no clue what value the general MO community places on the value of nitpicking edits vs. the possible destruction of semantical content, etc. Replies so far seem to indicate that opinion is mixed.

@Bill: Judging by comments so far, there is a clear consensus that this community condones editing for both substantive and superficial reasons and that some people will steer clear of editing your posts in order to avoid further flame wars.

Does anyone mind if I close this thread? I think the substantive issues have been dealt with.

@Scott: Why not leave it open on the chance that others may chime in at some later date?

I'm not sure that all the substantive issues have been dealt with. Abstracting away from the specific complaints that prompted Bill Dubuque's inquiry, its clear that
community editing has both pluses and minuses. On the one hand, theres no question that there are tremendous benefits in having various minor errors instantly corrected by the community.

On the other hand, there is the possibility that edits would go against the intention of the original poster.

Example 1: the original poster deliberately uses some non-standard notation, which someone rewrites.

Example 2: the original poster uses some non-standard stylistic choices, which someone rewrites.

Example 3: someone edits a post while misunderstanding the point of the question, which might, for example, lead him/her to delete some material as irrelevant.

Example 4: someone makes a perfectly legitimate edit, but the original poster blows up with anger. This is not implausible, given how unusual it is in academia
for someone to edit your work without your explicitly given consent!

A possible solution: have some sort of checkbox you can tick to make your question uneditable by others.

I realize the above may be too difficult to implement - from perusing the meta threads, I gather that making changes to the site is
tricky business.

One of the issues I mentioned in the first post has received no discussion. Namely, if trivial edits *are* highly encouraged then perhaps it might make sense to raise the CW threshold a bit.

I think that many of us are at least somewhat sympathetic to your concerns. But unfortunately, we are stuck with the StackExchange software, and we are unable -- for now -- make any such changes. Unfortunately -- for now -- we can only say, caveat emptor -- if you don't like it, sorry, tough luck.