I have just made my first attempted edit of a post here other than my own and I am confused on what a substantial edit is because the edit appears to be rejected because the my edit was not "substantial"? I have seen edits that are much less by others to my own posts.
I am trying to figure out what "substantial" is so I only make "substantial" edits in the future
A substantial edit is one that addresses all of the issues in a post. For example, if there are spelling and grammar errors, but you only correct the formatting of some code elements, that would be too minor.
In that specific case I don't necessarily agree with the edit being rejected. You corrected some grammar and capitalization, and you removed irrelevant passages. Perhaps you could have removed the incorrect use of code formatting too.
Note that it was the OP of the post who rejected your suggestion, and the OP always has the last word on suggested edits.
I wouldn't bother editing a post which meaning is easily understood. I'd edit a post if meaning is hard to understand or something is very ugly.
Other occasions I've edited a post is when something has changed since the post was written. For example if post states that program x cannot do something, but now it can, I'd edit the post with information that the said program can now do that (including version number). Or maybe syntax has been simplified or something like that.
This doesn't mean I'd correct simply incorrect posts. In the case a post is plain incorrect I'd post another answer that is correct. Depending on level of incorrectness I can also downvote the post. But I believe that if original answer is correct for the time it has been written, it deserves to get the corrections for the good of everybody reading that answer.
