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In some questions, users write some greeting sentences like thank you for your attention. or any advice is appreciated. or other sentences like these by which the users want to express that they are thankful to the people who read and give advices on their questions; or they appreciate any comments or solutions and answers which are posted to their questions.

Most of the times, I edit such sentences because I do not find them really helpful, relevant or on-topic to the questions' text. But, should they really be edited or it is good to have them in the body of the questions?

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2 Answers 2

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They are not germane to the text of the question, and therefore need not be preserved. My preference is to remove such text.

If the question is "fresh," then I would think that an edit just to remove such text is appropriate. However, I would not edit an old question, as this is not a significant enough change to the question that would merit moving it to the top of the "active" question list.

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    I wish there were a way to do edits that didn't push them to the top of the active list. Maybe a "minor edit" checkbox a'la wikipedia.
    – RoboKaren
    Mar 17, 2015 at 18:56
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    @RoboKaren I also wish there were such feature. At least users could do edits to tags assigned to the question without bumping them to the active list of questions. However, I think that the active list is a way to bring changes to the question in front of other users to control whether the change or edit is suitable or not. At least, minor edits without bringing them to the top-list should be available to the more established users, such as those with higher reputation or moderators (who are not doing careless edits to the posts for sure).
    – enthu
    Mar 19, 2015 at 9:55
  • @RoboKaren request on Meta? Addition to request: Minor Edits need not change at least 6chars?
    – AAM111
    Jul 11, 2016 at 16:55
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I realize that across SE sites the accepted answer is what is increasingly recommended, or at least common behavior (certainly among those network sites I have frequented), but I find its reasoning dubious. On the one hand, the site suggests that reasonably minor spelling or grammar errors go unaddressed (specifically mentioned: "...or two words"); but with the accepted answer staying unopposed, it is now searchable best practice to edit "Thank you!" out of a fresh question. I find that sad.

As with other issues, I see no reason why ASE should adopt habits I find unfriendly, not welcoming, and so questionable. The sub-sites are given leeway to be different from another, and academia always struck me as the "friendliest," for lack of a better word. Within reason, let people talk in their language.

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    Well, I have impression that Academia.SE goes to much into a forum mode and he should coerce more (not less) to stick to the SE format.
    – Piotr Migdal
    Mar 19, 2015 at 15:08

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