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I'm drawing attention to my question that was subject to edit:

https://superuser.com/review/suggested-edits/291150

Honestly, I don't think it needed any revision. I don't know how this can be controlled. I'm pretty sure anyone who's either a native English speaker or otherwise could have understood my question the way it was.

Honestly,

  1. Did my question have any grammatical errors?
  2. Weren't the tags relevant or sufficient already?
  3. Didn't the ones who approved it see that there was no need for revision?

If I were to stubbornly argue, I may be able to revise it further, and then maybe someone else can further better that.

Now as is, I cannot undo the approved edit. I cannot report it to an admin.

Is there a mechanism to rollback this edit or is this a new feature we need? I don't see the rollback link for this edit.

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  • I'd add, in general, unless its outright vandalism, rolling back edits is considered somewhat bad form. Specifically in this case, I tend to think the edits improve the answer. While its your answer, the 'wiki-like'- aspect of SE, where others can improve your answer is by design. As long as it fixes something or improves readability, please let it be.
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    Commented Oct 4, 2014 at 8:06
  • If there is grammar changes that indicates the edits are actaully needed
    – Ramhound
    Commented Oct 4, 2014 at 18:46
  • "[...] original poster has last say [...]" How is that enforced? I've been to none of the SE sites where OP has "last say" on anything. There can be discussion about intent, but this is a shared content network. If I edit your post and you roll it back, normally I'll just leave it alone, but there's nothing forcing me to do so... Commented Oct 4, 2014 at 23:46
  • 1
    I'd say, based off your history and interactions with others on the site so far, that your view on how edits should be done is rather at odds with how I've practically seen edits handled on SU. You can of course, roll back an edit. However, I'd consider edits to be a compliment, that you had a good answer that deserved a little love, rather than an attempt to bruise one's ego. I'd also add that there's nothing disrespectful about edits at all, and my personal, unofficial opinion is that its not worth getting massively worked up about, as you seem to be.
    – Journeyman Geek Mod
    Commented Oct 5, 2014 at 0:37
  • Ego, anger, strong exchange of words... My point is that I only see trivial edits as a means of improving one's score and status rather than actually being helpful. That's why I initally wanted to rollback the edits to my question. After all, the question was dealt with in the past and it's gone. Everyone who read it then, had no issues understanding it. So why now? It's unwanted. Look for example the initial edit that took off the Thank you! Does anyone really think that it was an improvement? Not to me, honesly. However, after the answer by allquixotic, I think I'd rather leave it.
    – itsols
    Commented Oct 5, 2014 at 13:26

1 Answer 1

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I don't see the rollback link for this edit.

To roll back, you need to click the edited… link which brings you to the revisions.

There, you should see rollback links for all previous revisions of your post.

Also, there is an edit link under the question. You could just edit the question to be the way it was before. That's materially the same as a rollback.

Did my question have any grammatical errors?

Yes, it did, but they were fairly minor. The edits being made were rather picky. We've seen much worse than your original question on SuperUser, and while those worse posts are often edited so they're not terrible -- which is a good use of the edit feature -- yours was more borderline. Personally, I probably would not have taken the time to edit your post for grammar; however, I feel that your post is better in some sense now that the edits are complete. Therefore, I don't think a rollback is really warranted.

Weren't the tags relevant or sufficient already?

Well, your question is more about how to view a large XML file, and not about Firefox specifically. All he did to the tags is remove the tag. That doesn't strike me as particularly egregious, since your problem is not primarily with Firefox, but with the concept of, "okay, I have this huge XML file and the vast majority of programs can't deal with it properly....".

Didn't the ones who approved it see that there was no need for revision?

Apparently not. Again, the revisions were minor, but since there were several minor revisions, it wasn't just a single-character edit, so declining it as "too minor" wasn't really warranted.

It's a judgment call. There aren't really black and white rules; we have guidelines which people interpret in different ways. And heck, even if the consensus eventually is that the edit was unwarranted, two random people with edit privileges making the decision to accept is hardly an indication that the system is wrong. People make mistakes. It happens.

I don't know how this can be controlled.

In the general case, we want to encourage edits that significantly improve the content on the site, rather than discouraging them because they violate some notion of authorship or ownership of posts. Unlike a forum, our goal is not to say "I did this!", but rather, to have the best possible content presented immediately to the user when they click on a question link from a search engine. The reputation system, your name attached to the question/answer, etc. are all secondary or tertiary aspects of the site, and serve a much less important purpose than the actual content that is produced (the question and the best answer to that question, most importantly; comments, too, are secondary).

In this specific case, you could make the argument that the edit was not significant enough to be worth anyone's time, but the edit was made, and your post is better off for it. Ending an interrogative statement with a period is a particular pet peeve of mine, and he fixed that, so he gets a cookie in my opinion. OK, so I'm half-joking about the previous sentence. But saying you want the edit reverted is like saying that you intentionally want your question to be worse. The fact that the edit only helps a little bit is not really doing you any material harm. If it were changing the meaning or intent or subject of your question, then I'd be defending your authorship rights.

I'm pretty sure anyone who's either a native English speaker or otherwise could have understood my question the way it was.

I agree. No further comment on that.

I cannot undo the approved edit. I cannot report it to an admin.

The second sentence is incorrect. You can "flag" your own question (by clicking the "flag" link underneath your question text and the tags) to tell a moderator about it. Moderators can always see the entire edit history, as well as who made the edits, who approved them, etc. Based on this, they can decide whether the edit was appropriately approved or not.

You don't have to concern yourself with flagging the edit specifically. Flagging the question itself, and explaining in a few words what you want the moderator to look at, is sufficient.

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