Why was this review (that just corrects grammar) rejected?

Question

I'm referring to: https://superuser.com/review/suggested-edits/770815

Mainly I'm wondering about the following aspect...

The original sentence was a little confusing: "To get a list names ever exited in monthly worksheet."

I changed it to: "To get a list of all names ever exited in each monthly worksheet."

I think it's much easier to read if it uses correct grammar, especially because I made sure not to change the original intend.

I'm still new to this site, and I'm trying to find the ins and outs. So I would be very thankful if s.o. could elaborate if the edit was rejected correctly and if so why?

Answer 1

I'm the other user who rejected the suggested edit.

Basically everything that Run5k and especially Ramhound have said applies. It was not just a matter of not correcting all the grammatical errors in this particular case.

As a side note, suggested edits also need to be substantive. So, for example, if the only issue with a post is the typo "teh" (should have been "the"), a suggested edit to fix that will be rejected. (The underlying reason has to do with wasting reviewers' time and bumping the question to the top of the Questions Page, as explained further down.)

Once you reach 2000+ reputation, though, the rules change. As edits are no longer reviewed, trivial edits are allowed. However, as the question is still bumped, you should try to limit the trivial edits to questions with recent activity.

I think one of the problems is, that the goals/rules of reviewing are not defined very well in the help center. The term "make it significantly better" is very subjective which makes it a very bad guideline for newcomers.

You are totally and absolutely right! The rules/goals of reviewing are neither available in one specific location, nor are they clear. They are also very subjective (and understandably so for a self-moderated site).

The best advice I can give is to check your history for rejected edits and even non-unanimous approvals to learn what is acceptable. (There are differences even among the different "stacks" in the Stack Exchange network.)

The only other rules of thumb I can offer are:

1. Always split a wall of text into paragraphs.

2. Always improve all the grammar. (If you are neither fluent in English, nor have an excellent grasp of its grammar, you are at a severe disadvantage, and it might be best not to edit any posts where grammar is more than a minor issue.)

3. Inlining screenshots/images should be safe even if there are no other issues to fix.

4. Ditto for formatting code blocks.
5. Avoid edits that just add back-tick formatting and <kbd> HTML tags.
6. If the question is clearly understandable and easy to read before editing (both very subjective, though), then any suggested edit runs the risk of being rejected.

not allowing for a small quality improvement on a proposal doesn't sound logical in the big picture. The ultimate goal is to improve quality of the questions and answers. Beside the organizational issue (that it gets bumped to the top of the list, which is a fault by design an can be changed) I don't see a reason to limit proposals to large improvements. But I could name several good reasons to allow small improvements.

You can't allow un-reviewed edits by low rep users as this would lead to a massive spam/abuse issue. With a review system, you can't allow small quality improvements as this will swamp the unpaid volunteers doing the reviews.

As for bumping edits, how are you going to distinguish between a trivial (i.e. unnecessary) edit and a minor one that nevertheless substantially improves a post thus necessitating giving it more visibility?

The simplest^* solution is to bump all edits and rely on a system of checks and balances to allow/disallow edits (since it is already in place for other reasons).

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_{^*Though not necessarily the best. A better solution would be to allow editors/reviewers to optionally suppress bumping, with the reviewers being able to override the editors.}

Answer 2

The original sentence was a little confusing: "To get a list names ever exited in monthly worksheet."

I changed it to: "To get a list of all names ever exited in each monthly worksheet."

You failed to identify that exited isn't the correct word grammatically. The author was looking to use existed. Even the correct word, that the author meant to use, is a poor word to use which means a different word should have been suggested (i.e the word created or generated).

I think it's much easier to read if it uses correct grammar, especially because I made sure not to change the original intent.

I don't agree with your conclusion. You failed to address even half of the grammatical mistakes in the answer.

Again, you may need formula like if(isna(vlookup(...)), "", vlookup(...) to get rid of the #N/A text when a given name not found for some specific months.

Should have been:

Again, you may need a formula like if(isna(vlookup(...)), "", vlookup(...) to get rid of the #N/A text when a given name not found for some specific months.

You failed to identify the grammatical mistake in this sentence.

Once the full name list is got, later monthly update can be appending name list from new monthly to old full name list then re-filter it.

Should have been:

Once the full name list is determined, future monthly updates can append the name list from the previous month's list and then re-filter it.

From a database's point of view, this is in fact to get a union of name lists in monthly worksheet (including removing the duplicates);

Should have been:

From a database's point of view, this is in fact to get a union of name lists in the monthly worksheet (including removing the duplicates);

I would like to add, even my suggested corrections to the author's extremely poor answer, does not address all the issues it has. Most of the original sentences don't actually make sense. The quality of that particular answer is extremely poor.