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The StackExchange model is based round the idea that the sites are not forums, but that questions and answers should have some element of generality. As such, 'good' questions should be focussed on the matter in hand, ideally without many things that might make good forum posts. That's one reason that 'thanks' is discouraged and why community edits are ...
43
I think any improvement on an existing answer is valid. It would be far more helpful to have current information than to have outdated yet functional answers. Even if this means you replace 50 lines of code with a new \usepackage and a single command. The reason should be obvious: Answers here are meant to benefit the community, which is always changing.
...
33
I think that editing a question after you've received good answers to it is generally bad practice, especially if it would change the validity of the answers. If what you need could be done with a minimal change, it might be possible to add a comment to each answer with an extra question. This will notify the original answerers and let them update their ...
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You're dealing with people here, and some people are just different. They may not like other's removing their signatures, their "Thank You's", correcting their CaPiTaLiZaTioNS, ...
Having been here for a while, I have grown accustomed to the communal attitude and nature - something that most likely guided you in your edit. That's honourable, and that's that....
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My humble attempt. :)
First of all, I'd like to say that I really admire your work in the main SO site. I learned a lot from your answers. It's an honour to have a SO fellow user here. Make yourself at home, I really hope you enjoy this community.
Please, don't take my next lines personal. It's just some humble thoughts about the way I see this specific ...
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I am one of those users who consistently reject removing thanks edits. The Stackoverflow people started an utopia to make the questions anonymized and general as much as possible. Thanking is considered to be somehow useless in terms of know-how. But time showed that every SE site has a different flavor and similarly we have developed a different path in ...
30
It's not really an answer, but my thoughts are too long for a comment. :)
First of all, I'd like to thank you for all the effort you've put into moderncv and the time spent in helping people here. :)
I really share your worries on some MWE lacking the minimal component. Indeed we have quite a bunch of such examples in our community.
I once stumbled upon ...
28
Well we've had this discussion on other grounds too, as you well know, but I think that since the language of the site is English, editing other-language typographical practices doesn't seem to me to be so out of line, especially if the question is already active. While it's true that it could be thought of as too minor an edit, and could be rejected on ...
27
A clear approach doesn't mean that everybody does it the same way, such things can happen.
It also depends on who reviewed your edit: possibly the questioner rejects it, because he posted the "thanks" and wants to keep it. An experienced reviewer may accept it, because a "thanks" below the question doesn't add know-how value to the site in the long sight.
...
23
I don't see why the source of the edit should really be of concern if you have reason enough to think that the edit is helpful. For me, the issue with major edits is mainly if they significantly change the question or answer, (even if good) in which case I'm inclined to be conservative on accepting them. In that case maybe the provenance of the edit might ...
23
Engines & Formats
TeX
pdfTeX (source)
XeTeX (source)
XeLaTeX (source)
LuaTeX (source)
LaTeX (source)
AMS-LaTeX (not usually a separate format) (source)
ConTeXt (source)
AMS-TeX (source)
BibTeX (source)
When one of these names is used as an instruction on a command line, it is almost always lowercase and in code markup, e.g., tex foo.tex, latex bar....
23
To round up the comment thread.
You seemed to be surprised that the edit should be reverted in is entirety rather than being fixed/improved. In fact reverting is the natural action to take in this circumstance.
Someone who decides to edit a question (or answer) can decide to do it at a time convenient for them, and to spend as much or as little time as ...
21
A list of (probably) all posts that show this problem is returned by the following query
https://data.stackexchange.com/tex/query/695628/posts-probably-affected-by
Which returns 11554 postings, this shows all the pre-2014 postings on the site whose initial unedited markdown has a single backslash followed by four spaces, or spaces and a tab. This is a (...
21
On behalf of the team, thank you very much to everyone who participated in fixing the backslash problem. It really was excellent, amazing work. Editing is always underappreciated, and this must have been all the duller to do by hand because it was looking at the same bit of code formatting over and over rather than cleaning up prose.
I apologize for our ...
19
I would say that it's up to the owner of the post to decide whether they feel editing the code formatting is okay or not, not a third party. When someone's answer is edited, they are notified and can make the call themselves. Maybe they think of the new code formatting as an improvement and are happy about it; if not they can undo the changes themselves.
19
I've done this before. My guidelines are:
Keep the original possible duplicate. That was, after all, the majority view. If I disagree with this then I'd want to discuss it first (here or in chat).
Make the plurality clear: "Possible duplicate s" and put them in a list.
Other than that, this is a good idea so long as it really is a possible duplicate and ...
19
I completely agree with David's comments. The edit fixed some grammar issues, but also changed the meaning of the question. The problem was in the usage of "all the time that", an almost word by word translation from Italian "tutte le volte che" ("each time" would have been a proper translation). Unfortunately, "all the time" has a different meaning in ...
17
The first thing to bear in mind here is that while there are places where there are StackExchange rules/polices, on editorial matters 'guidelines' is a much more accurate term. (Rules are clearly appropriate for legal matters, for example.) Each StackExchange network site has its own conventions, and those are to some extent 'organic'. They also need to work ...
16
Editor Sign Up List
Texmaker:
doncherry (Win7),
hpesoj626 (linux).
Updated 2013-02-28
TeXworks:
Joseph Wright,
tohecz (linux).
Updated 2013-03-09
TeXnicCenter:
Werner,
percusse.
Updated 2013-03-15
TeXStudio:
hpesoj626 (linux).
Updated 2013-03-09
TeXShop:
Alan Munn
Vim:
Psirus.
Updated 2013-03-09
Emacs:
Charles Stewart (OSX, linux),
Tyler Smith.
Updated 2013-...
16
In this one case, yes, Barbara Beeton uses an exclusive no-caps style to distinguish her personal posts from anything official representing the American Mathematical Society. See this question for some more discussion.
Respecting poster's style.
16
I prefer that the edit isn't just "removed thanks"; however, the first thing I look at when I review an edit is the time when the message was posted. If it's less than a couple of hours I usually don't bother and accept (or improve) the edit, because the edit follows the guidelines (right or wrong, they exist). If the message is older, I accept the edit only ...
16
I think this is a really bad idea. We strive to be an inclusive site, and enforcing such capitalizations is a great way to foster exactly the opposite view: "there are those of us who know the 'right' way and you are in the group that doesn't know the 'right' way."
As for editing, editing a post just for such 'errors' is also inappropriate; if there are ...
16
There is no formal way of preventing this behaviour as editing a post is assumed to improve it, and the subsequent bump is a by-product.
Since the site is community driven, improper use of this technique can be discussed in the chat room - to seek confirmation (just to make sure you're not seeing things that aren't there) and perhaps brought to moderator ...
15
Because.
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This subject was, of course, already discussed thoroughly in the question linked by Alan Munn, to which you (Bill the Lizard) already responded. The other responses were well-considered meditations on policy implications by moderators current and former, and as such I don't think any better opinions can be obtained in response to this new question.
...
15
I see my name there with this;
SE policies and even internal consensuses seem to not be clearly communicated to users here on TeX.SE (two technically incorrect comments both received upvotes) (This btw is a larger problem with a couple of other communities as well, however this is one of the oddest cases I have found)
Well this is very simple from my ...
15
In the situation you described I should say "absolutely not".
In my opinion, the correct way to act, to not waste the answer, is that the answerer should ask a new question where to put his/her answer and delete the original answer.
In this way the original question remains unanswered (someone else will answer, seeing its status) and the original answer is ...
14
If the addition to a question is minimal, you can leave a comment as clarification. For almost everything else, I would suggest that editing your question is a far better option than having a discussion-style commentary. Comments are not always shown - it depends on the number of them, and the votes they've received.
There are some considerations in terms ...
14
I would add something like "Package" or "Class" to use the correct call with \usepackage or \documentclass.
To change only the first letter of a heading to an capital letter is no good practice. Do it only if the post needs improvement too or has to be retagged.
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As commented in the posting that you quote initially, any assessment of whether consensus has been reached has to take account of the possibility of low participation. That clearly applies in the case of the meta site here which has far lower participation than the main site. So a simple appeal to the current voting figures on a question doesn't really have ...
Only top voted, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible
