Why "avoid trivial, one-letter edits unless absolutely necessary"?

Question

Why sholdn't the community welcome editing typos?

When I klick edit, a warning appears, asking me to "avoid trivial, one-letter edits unless absolutely necessary".

Is this to encourag the editor to come up with a non-trivial improvement, as long as they have the edit window open?

What is the preferred approch?

Would it be preferible to leave a comment? To flag the question? Ignore the typo?

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-03-20 10:31:50Z

6

Good question. The issue has been raised on the SO meta before, and the answers I can find are as follows:

There's no limit to nitpicking, and if the question is understandable, then tiny fixes don't add much other than to satisfy our grammar Nazi neuroses.
Editing the question bumps it back to the top of the page, which is discouraged.
When the question has been edited by 5+ people, it becomes Community Wiki, which (among other things) means no one earns any rep from the question.

CommunityBot

1

answered Mar 19, 2012 at 15:16

eykanalMod

48.8k27 silver badges60 bronze badges

2

as pointed out on in the comments on the SO meta question, such undesired side-effects of minor edits (bump, change to CW, etc., ), could be eliminated for minor edits (e.g. by having a check-box that says 'minor-edit')
– David LeBauer
Commented Mar 19, 2012 at 18:24
@David - That definitely opens the door for abuse, but still, suggest it as a feature request on the main meta and see what people think.
– eykanal Mod
Commented Mar 19, 2012 at 18:28

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