up vote -7 down vote favorite
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Why is it, that every question I ask, someone decides to edit it. My English is usually pretty good, I use the correct punctuation and appropriate usage of italic, bold, tags and other such nonsense. etc.

If you hide the person who has edited the question from everyone BUT the original question author, then I would imagine it would stop being so anal about things.

It really irritates me seeing a user editing every other question for no apparent reason.

A prime example would be someone editing the first paragraph in this question so it contains an unordered list, just for the hell of it.

Could the editor at least be required to leave an explanation of what s/he has changed?

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Ummmm, I just checked your parent user, and you've asked three questions, only one of which has been edited. That question wasn't even edited by the user you originally mentioned (and it needed the edit IMO). Can you link to an instance of your concern? – C. Ross Jan 21 '11 at 12:07
All he did was rephrase the question. It was still understandable. (I just noticed you can view the edits, something I didn't know before). Still, why is it necessary to show the user that has edited the question to the rest of the world? – theorise Jan 21 '11 at 12:12
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Many users do leave an explanation of their edit - in the history view you can see a "title" for each edit, written by the editor. – Oak♦ Jan 21 '11 at 13:05
@Oak thanks, I didn't know this :) – theorise Jan 21 '11 at 13:06

3 Answers

up vote 19 down vote accepted

There are two topics mixed up here, one is a pattern of editing you find inappropriate, the second is whether the user who edited last should be shown.

To answer the latter question, the history of editing is an essential feature. It shows who edited it and what exactly was changed. This transparency is essential for a site where many users can edit any question and answer. There is no chance that the SE team would remove that functionality, and I wouldn't want them to.

And the reason why some users edit a lot of posts is because they want to improve the overall quality of content on this site. It has nothing to do with having their names on those posts.

And if you don't like an edit to your question you can always rollback this edit.

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up vote 27 down vote

Editors are your buddies! Like Batman and Robin, Robin helps you fight the crime of bad Q&A and terrible forums with proper grammar, capitalization, and readable paragraphs!

batman and robin editing

Together you are better as a "dynamic duo" than you would be separately, no?

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And they get to put their campy lines into the revision history where nobody will ever see. It's a win all around. – mmyers Jan 22 '11 at 2:54
up vote 7 down vote

People earn their right to edit through participation in the site. The edits are made in good faith to try to improve the quality of the site. Copy-editing posts to improve clarity, grammar, spelling, etc. has been confirmed as a good practice on every site. Explanations are encouraged, but not required.

In the case that the edits are destructive, inform the mods and they will take the appropriate disciplinary action.

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+1. We're just trying to help make the site better. It's not personal. :) (If you believe it is, roll it back or flag the post.) – Brant Jan 21 '11 at 19:41

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