up vote 6 down vote favorite

Since while back it's actually easier for new users to edit than leave a comment. Just now I encountered case where edit was not correcting or adding information to the answer, but was counter-argument to its content.

I rejected the edit and left the comment that such usage of edit seems inappropriate to me personally.

Any input if my call was correct on this one?

Maybe it would make sense to introduce community-moderated comments in same fashion as edits? The inability to leave comments seem to account for considerable amount of inappropriate answers and such.

Answer in question with my comments.

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2 Answers

up vote 6 down vote accepted

It is completely inappropriate to edit a post to add "discussion" to it, and such suggested edits should be rejected, immediately, with extreme prejudice.

Note that if enough suggested edits from a specific user are rejected in a given time frame, that user is disallowed from suggesting edits for 7 days.

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Thanks for explicit guideline. Anything on doing something to edits similar for comments? I lost count how many times I typed "do not use answers for discussion, you will be able to comment after you get some reputation..." – Rarst♦ Mar 26 '11 at 10:28
@rarst I don't understand what you wrote. What are you asking for? – Jeff Atwood♦ Mar 26 '11 at 10:55
Possibly making comments work in same fashion as edits for low-rep users. Leave a comment, wait for it to be approved by someone with high rep. I am not sure if that is feasible, but at moment there is already a mess with people leaving answers instead of comments and now editing answers. Just interested if something like this might work / planned / rejected. – Rarst♦ Mar 26 '11 at 11:54
@rarst I strongly oppose comments for low-rep users. Noise is noise, regardless of whether it was posted as an "answer" or a comment. meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/51926/… – Jeff Atwood♦ Mar 26 '11 at 12:11
Understandable, but my point is with current setup - only mods can deal with answers made instead of comments, which takes time and their attention. If it was decided that edits is something non-moderators can help moderate, why won't consider same for comments? As for me approving edit is more complex decision than approving comment. – Rarst♦ Mar 26 '11 at 13:08
@rarst we get one thousand mod flags per day on Stack Overflow. Do the math on the amount of time it takes to process a flag, then add another 500-1000 comment approvals, and see if you think this suggestion is something worth implementing. Commenting is a privilege that should be earned for the reasons I described... and users can flag non-answers. Those are easy to clean up. – Jeff Atwood♦ Mar 27 '11 at 4:07
one thousand mod flags per day how many of those are "not an answer" flags? Commenting is a privilege (50 rep) so is edit questions and answers (2000 rep). Yet new user can do latter, but not former. Anyway I shared my point of view, let's not waste time on this if it doesn't look feasible. – Rarst♦ Mar 27 '11 at 10:01
@rarst 'how many of those are "not an answer" flags?' maybe 10 - 20 percent. Please be sure you read the sentence "because the focus is on getting answers to questions, not meta-commentary and discussion" .. we purposely funnel people to questions and answers for a reason; it is intentional. – Jeff Atwood♦ Mar 27 '11 at 10:04
up vote -1 down vote

That's kind of backwards, isn't it? A NEW user can't "comment" but they can "edit"??

Go to any big blog/forum/etc.. you will be able to leave a comment, but NOT edit another user's posts. So, isn't it backwards? Comments can be flagged by the community anyways, so it should not be a problem. But edits can't be flagged, and must wait until moderator reviews it..

New users can post Questions AND Answers AND EDIT other peoples answers, but can't comment?? Very frustrating, especially when they are trying to build a rep or just help people. Look at yahoo answers, no limitations on what new users can do and it works just fine.

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You can suggest edits, which need to be approved by someone else with high reputation. Only users with more than 2000 rep can do direct edits. Comments are an exception to the strict Q&A focus of the site. The risk is that they will be used as a "social tool", sidetracking the Q&A discussion, which is why it is required to have some experience on the site (tracked in reputation) to get access to them. – Jan Fabry Mar 28 '11 at 6:19
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Look at yahoo answers, no limitations on what new users can do and it works just fine. I've not read something so funny in quite some time. Thanks for the laugh! – tnorthcutt Mar 28 '11 at 20:01

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