I've been seeing some (1) pretty (2) strange (3) edits popping up.
What is the purpose behind these? Do you suppose badges incentive this sort of behaviour?
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2 Answers
As a general case, people should be encouraged to edit posts that they don't find fit. Usually this should be done to format code, correct spelling or grammar, properly tag questions, ...
Magento offers some incentives for this. There are 3 badges for editing questions
- Editor (Bronze) First edit
- Strunk & White (Silver) Edited 80 posts
- Copy Editor (Gold) Edited 500 posts (excluding own or deleted posts and tag edits)
In this case I think someone just wants the Gold badge. If you take a look here you will see that that specific user has about 400 edits. I think he's aiming for 500.
I don't want to send him an e-mail to stop because it seams to me like this is a harmless action just so he can take a badge. It brings no value to this website but it doesn't hurt it either. (maybe it just annoys people but he will stop after 100 or so edits more)
In case you are reading this Keyul Shah, please stop editing random posts. If you really want to help and earn your badge, at least find posts with problems and improve them. A lot of people (myself included) will be very thankful if you do it. This way you will feel like you really earned the badge. If you keep editing random posts your badge is worth nothing.
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2I hear you. The big problem I have with it is that it will lead to other users following the same behaviour. This ties in to another post which describes how the users on this site become quite competitive instead of behaving like a community.– MooseCommented Jan 23, 2015 at 12:13
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@moose Unfortunately I am not agreeing with this point marius. Honestly, apart from the first two paragraphs, the rest section is all about disrespecting a great community member who is contributing in large extend. Checkout his answers and all other activities. Anything else needed for proving his genuinity? I have re-read your first two paragraphs and I didnt feel anything wrong with these edits. Every edit is making the question/answer more readable. It may be readable before. But after the edit, it is MORE readable. Commented Feb 19, 2015 at 2:28
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we cant say that those simple edits doing nothing in terms content readability. It is making those question/answer even more beautiful. In my personal opinion, every small edit that is made by community members should be appreciated. Commented Feb 19, 2015 at 2:38
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@RKT-JoinMageStackDay2015 Where did I say that he is not a valuable community member. He is and I hope he keeps up the good work. I was just saying that editing a post just to remove one space or to add a new line is not a valuable contribution.– Marius ModCommented Feb 19, 2015 at 7:08
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@Marius : but such edits may make the question/answer more readable. That is a good thing right ? Commented Feb 19, 2015 at 7:14
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@Marius : "In this case I think someone just wants the Gold badge. If you take a look here you will see that that specific user has about 400 edits. I think he's aiming for 500" -> this is what I concern about. If he is a genuine user and the badge is not his concern, then once he read this post, it may provide some pain to him. Am I misunderstood these lines ????? If yes, then pardon me Commented Feb 19, 2015 at 7:16
Thats a normal thing in community managed content.
And I think its a good thing to have people making small improvements. In this case most of them are formatting, like missing code wrapping which can make questions and answers more readable.
Even if it is only for a badge, it offers an increased value to the Site and it doesn't matter how big the improvement is. We need people who go trough all the questions, and if he also does some up/down votes during this, even better.
He is probably one who of the few, who read really a lot of questions during the last weeks.
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Not in this case because the edits were of trivial nature and added absolutely no value to the posts whatsoever. If you actually look at the links, you'll see what I mean.– MooseCommented Jan 23, 2015 at 15:29
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I did, and yes, not every post is valid, but most of them. Some others only add or remove whitespaces. If it is only because the badge, the problem will solve itself after reaching the 500. Commented Jan 23, 2015 at 15:40
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But do you not see the damage that can do to a community when we will have people doing this consistently in order to achieve that? We may as well do away with said badge then because it is not an achievement, it is as Marius said worth nothing. And it is going to devalue to questions and answers people are providing with the intention of enriching the community itself. It could even discourage people from participating. :(– MooseCommented Jan 23, 2015 at 17:07
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1@moose : I absolutely agreeing with this very much point. Every single edit, whether it is too small or large, is making the question more readable. We need to understand the fact that, he is spending his valuable time to improve the content of this site. He is going through each and every question and looking for any mistakes.Actaully we need to congrat him Commented Feb 19, 2015 at 2:35