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This suggested edit (on a highly-upvoted question) came up in the review queue. It linkifies the words "GNU Screen" and "tmux", pointing them to the respective sites. The question was already useful and well-written, so there's nothing else for editors to do that I can see.

Is it useful to include links to the official web sites when programs are mentioned? Should I accept this edit?

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  • A highly upvoted question asking "What are the pros and cons of each?". VTC as too broad/opinion based
    – DavidPostill Mod
    Jan 17, 2016 at 23:02
  • You have to ask yourself the following question, does "this edit does not make the post even a little bit easier to read, easier to find, more accurate or more accessible. Changes are either completely superfluous or actively harm readability.", I would say no it does not, thus I personally wouldn't approve the edit.
    – Ramhound
    Jan 18, 2016 at 4:07
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    @Ben In the edit guideline of stackexchange are expressly reported as reasons to edit: "To add related resources or hyperlinks" and eventually "To correct minor mistakes or add updates as the post ages". Moreover the edit will decrease the number of page needed to arrive to the tmux and screen pages (and the amount of data to download). In a cache clear browser,e.g., to google only the word screen gave me the first useful link in the 3rd page...
    – Hastur
    Jan 19, 2016 at 8:56
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    If the links are helpful and related I'd approve them, more info is sometimes better :)
    – rogerdpack
    Jan 25, 2016 at 16:52

2 Answers 2

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yes, there's no harm in approving them provided they link to the official project sites

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My vote would be to only change a modified post.

To me, the presence of the "post was edited", by somebody other than the author, instantly raises some question (in my mind) about how much I'm seeing the author's intended post. Often, I don't bother to go through the effort of manually checking the edit history to get all the gory details, so the result is simply that some credibility is questioned.

In this case, the question already had that pollution because of a minor (but very worthy) edit on April 15th, so I agree that the post looks better because of the edit. (The post still shows an edit, but simply shows a different person's name.) If it wasn't changed yet, I would feel more strongly that the edit should not occur.

Still, I think there is some harm in encouraging people to add such frivolous changes. This question is years old. I expect such a change would kick this question back to the top of the list of questions with recent activity (and thereby knocking another question off the list... which may be a more recent question that would actually benefit more by having someone notice it and add a more significant update). I therefore disagree with the submitter's proposal to make the edit, and would prefer that this be rejected so that the submitter realizes that more substantial work is needed to edit the questions.

I know, Stack Exchange help: Editing says "To add related resources or hyperlinks" is a valid reason for editing. However, I consider that to be "useful hyperlinks". If someone says "My computer won't boot Windows", I don't need people to point me to http://microsoft.com/windows to learn about who made the software. Likewise, if the question is about tmux, and has the tmux tag, I probably won't need to have a hyperlink to tell me what tmux is. (If the hyperlinks being added pointed me to a specific page that had information that provided details related to the question, perhaps because the web page contained a demonstration of the situation, that might be a useful hyperlink.) I might also agree that a hyperlink to Info-Zip might be useful, since there are multiple programs named "zip" on the planet. However, hyperlinking to "tmux" doesn't seem as useful.

All in all, I would probably push "Skip" (since the question had been edited before), but my inclination would be to reject rather than pass, so the submitter strives to only take up our time (by submitting new changes), and kicking questions to the top of the list again, when things are more useful.

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    I disagree in some points: 1. If I didn't know tmux, following your line, I've to click and load the tmux tag page, the learn more one and then to select the tmux page. (This time there is the learn more page, many times there is only the excerpt or there is nothing at all). Imagine if I'm connected with a mobile and I pay for kb! The reasons of the hyperlinks is to avoid this. 2. If the old question is kicked on the top of the list and someone notice the need to be updated, it can be done. This is the reason for kicking up instead of deleting the old questions.
    – Hastur
    Jan 19, 2016 at 8:34
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    Questions asking about tmux don't need a link to the tmux page, they are only going to be answered by people with familiar with tmux, and if you don't know what tmux is then your not likely submitting an answer that will be very helpful ( and likely a comment submitted as an answer).
    – Ramhound
    Jan 19, 2016 at 16:07

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