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I would argue that, for the majority, paragraphs as well as short sentences almost always make it easier to read like in this suggested change. But the change was rejected for the following reason:

"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."

Since the change doesn't harm readability I assume the reason is that it "does not make the post even a little bit easier to read". I strongly disagree with that reason or did I overlook anything? Should I redo the suggestion?

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  • 2
    You have quite a few double negatives in your question, could you clarify what you mean? Also for what it is worth I would have approved your amends.
    – Burgi
    Commented Sep 25, 2018 at 16:18
  • BTW: there is nothing stopping you from re-submitting your changes.
    – Burgi
    Commented Sep 25, 2018 at 16:20
  • @Burgi ok, just want to make sure, I didn't overlook anything before I resubmit. I haven't been participating that long. I rephrased my post, hopefully it's better to understand now.
    – Albin
    Commented Sep 25, 2018 at 16:51
  • Once you have the rep to edit without review, you are free to fix even the most trivial things that you consider an improvement, although even then, you should weigh the value of the improvement against bumping the post to the main page. Below, 2K rep, edits create a review task for 2 to 3 other users. Reviewers look for edits that substantively improve a post. Style changes are often matters of opinion as to whether they're necessary or an actual improvement. Quoting "shortcut find and replace" didn't make that any clearer. (cont'd)
    – fixer1234
    Commented Sep 25, 2018 at 19:15
  • Changing the comma to a period is a matter of opinion as to whether that's an improvement. I would have left the last paragraph separate because it's a different subject, so that reparagraphing wasn't an improvement. That leaves just splitting the 1st paragraph. Yeah, that probably makes that paragraph a little more readable, but it's a trivial change if that's the only improvement. The net of all the changes: meh, not sure it was really a net improvement. I probably would have rejected it also. If it had fixed anything substantive, I might have improved the edit.
    – fixer1234
    Commented Sep 25, 2018 at 19:15
  • @fixer1234 ok, thx. I think I understand you're argument. First a follow-up question do you think that I missed significant improvements in my edit?
    – Albin
    Commented Sep 25, 2018 at 21:23
  • 1
    The title needs a capitalization, and maybe the big paragraph would benefit from being split. "Shortcut find and replace" isn't clear (is that the name of a utility? an action?), but it doesn't affect the meaning of the question. The question isn't suffering from lack of an edit. But readers do need to work a little to understand the question because it's entirely an abstract description. The long paragraph and unclear phrase make it more work to read, but fixing those doesn't solve the underlying problem. (cont'd)
    – fixer1234
    Commented Sep 26, 2018 at 0:08
  • 1
    I took another look at the question. It contained a lot of wording about stuff that wasn't critical to the actual question. That was largely what was distracting to wade through. I edited it to minimize the unnecessary part and focus on the actual question. Ordinarily, it isn't recommended to make such massive edits. Reviewers might even push back if this had been proposed by a <2K editor. In this case, I think more people will read it and immediately grasp the actual question.
    – fixer1234
    Commented Sep 26, 2018 at 0:30
  • @fixer1234 Yes, I agree that there is a lot of unneeded information and I didn't correct it for the exact reason you gave in your comment. What do you think, how should I go about this in the future?
    – Albin
    Commented Sep 26, 2018 at 10:14
  • PS. My original suggestion was something like this: "A drive letter changed on my Windows 7 Ultimate system. Changing it back unfortunately isn't an option. I have a lot of symlinks pointing to the old drive, and correcting them manually on by one it to tedious. Is it possible to automate this?" Two paragraphs, 2nd one start with "I have". I think it's easy to read and it has all the necessary info - nothing else is needed. But I was pretty sure it would be rejected. So I "just" changed things which in my view were most significant: no paragraph structure and long and hard to read sentences.
    – Albin
    Commented Sep 26, 2018 at 10:48
  • I retained a brief amount of info on the other effects because people might try to address those, thinking they could also be a problem. But, yeah, the real improvement on this one comes from focusing the question on the problem rather than tidying up superfluous stuff. The general recommendation is to change the authors words as little as needed to make the post clear. You have to weigh perfect English vs. the author's ownership in the post. Not every imperfection needs to be fixed if it doesn't really hurt the post. It's a judgment call; different reviewers could react differently.
    – fixer1234
    Commented Sep 26, 2018 at 18:52
  • @Albin: Since you asked: you failed to capitalize “Windows”.
    – Scott - Слава Україні
    Commented Sep 26, 2018 at 19:02
  • @fixer1234 Sorry, I have to point this out, you went from "The question isn't suffering from lack of an edit." and "you should weigh the value of the improvement against bumping the post to the main page." to "Ordinarily, it isn't recommended to make such massive edits.", as somebody who suggests a lot of edits on SO, I hope you don't flake out like this when reviewing, this kind of adds to my suspicion that there's really no space between "too minor" and "deviates too far from intent" and makes me not want to even bother editing.
    – jrh
    Commented Sep 30, 2018 at 16:05
  • Also I have to point out that I don't see any change in intent with the final version of the post, all I see is formatting changes, which are allowed on SO and (as far as I know, all SE sites). Though your recommendation is valid, robo-reviewers sometimes hate to see a lot of red and green and reject on sight. I'd consider that more of a problem with the reviewing system than a deliberate move by SE, though. Not sure if SU has different rules, let me know if this is the case.
    – jrh
    Commented Sep 30, 2018 at 16:13
  • Though looking at the broad scope of things, SU has nowhere near as many badly formatted / messy posts / dead link posts as SO does, hypothetically if the community did want to restrict SU's editing to 2k+ only users, it's possible that 2k+ users could handle this site, I guess?
    – jrh
    Commented Sep 30, 2018 at 16:37

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
5

I would argue that for the majority paragraphs as well as short sentences almost always make it easier to read like in this suggested change. But the change was rejected for the following reason: "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 agree with this rejection. You missed a grammatical mistake, which you actually introduced by the way, that by itself would be reasons to improve your edit as a reviewer.

I have a situation where a drive letter changed, without going into detail I have reason not to try and change it back.

should have been

I have a situation where a drive letter changed, without going into detail I have a reason not to try and change it back.

You otherwise only introduced 2 other improvements to the question.

"Shortcut find and replace"

This does not provide not a significant improvement to the clarity of the question. It does not make it easier to understand the question, and is a superficial change, to a question that needed significant improvements.

But alas, it seems I have to tackle my symlinks one at a time. This is tedious.

It is extremely difficult, to start a sentence with a conjunction and do so, in a correct manner. The original sentence was actually grammatically correct, so it should have been left alone, and changes like this should be avoided. You should compare the current revision to the revision you proposed. It is clear, what the author is asking, in the current revision. That really isn't that case, in your proposed edit, or the original revision of the question

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  • Just to be nitpicky, you missed a comma after "detail" in your suggested correction. :)
    – Burgi
    Commented Sep 26, 2018 at 15:53
  • @Burgi - You don't always have to use a third comma. I am not really sure I agree that it's missing. My grammar add-on doesn't agree with your conclusion.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Sep 26, 2018 at 16:02
  • 1
    It seems silly, squabbling over little grammar and punctuation things.  But, …
    – Scott - Слава Україні
    Commented Sep 26, 2018 at 19:02
  • (1) ‘‘I have reason’’ is OK (it doesn’t have to be ‘‘I have a reason’’); see this and this.  (2) I agree with Burgi; there should be a comma after “detail”.  (3) More importantly, I believe that the punctuation before “without” should be a semicolon, or else “Without” should start a new sentence.  (4) There doesn’t seem to be any such English word as “superficius”; I suspect that you mean “superficial”, and perhaps had “spurious” and/or “specious” dancing in your head.
    – Scott - Слава Україні
    Commented Sep 26, 2018 at 19:02
  • 1
    @Scott - Yes; I was thinking of the word "superficial", but my grammar, isn't really relevant. This is the problem with raising the question, "why was my edit rejected", because it's entirely up to the reviewers who rejected it.
    – Ramhound
    Commented Sep 26, 2018 at 19:52
  • At the end of the day, @Albin wanted to hear our what possible reasons there might be, for the edit to be rejected. So I listed the reasons, I would have used, if it appeared in the review queue. While the grammar mistakes might be minor, or might not even exist the improvements did not significantly improve the question (in my opionion).
    – Ramhound
    Commented Sep 26, 2018 at 22:14

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