Related to Suggested edit queue is full I have noticed in the past few days that the suggested edit queue is almost always full which means that I, and presumably many others, can rarely suggest edits.

Assuming that it is undesirable to prevent users wanting to help improve post quality from being able to do so, what is the preferred way to avoid that happening?

Some thoughts that might be expandable into suitable answers (by others) to vote on are:

  • remove the suggested edit queue limit
  • raise the suggested edit queue limit from its current setting at 200
  • empower more users to approve suggested edits
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    It's a shame of the amount of posts that require editing. Another point to add would be to maybe attempt to educate the author so they do it themselves and do it right. – Bugs Mar 28 '17 at 6:24
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    Another suggestion would be to only edit posts that actually look like they add value to the site. There are a lot of posts that come onto SO which are off topic. If they are don't edit. – Bugs Mar 28 '17 at 6:26
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    Another one is to actually provide substantial edits. I've seen one person thinking it was OK to change I am to I'm on every post they saw which adds to the queue and is a pointless edit. – Bugs Mar 28 '17 at 6:27
  • @Bugs Feel free to add any one or more of those as an answer. I think discussion in Meta is better had via Q&A rather than in comments. – PolyGeo Mar 28 '17 at 6:30
  • @Bugs I think those second and third suggestions are something that reviewers can already address by simply rejecting such edits. Sure it would be better if they do not reach the queue but once there they should be rejected quickly. I think the suggested edits that take longer to review, and thus contribute more to the queue being full, are those that have had more thought put into them. – PolyGeo Mar 28 '17 at 7:08
  • Some thought: filtrable or multiple queues for edits: meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/345636/… and meta.stackexchange.com/questions/277031/… – Cœur Mar 28 '17 at 14:08
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    That's odd. If memory serves, this queue has been historically empty or very low: meta.stackoverflow.com/q/341675/19679 meta.stackoverflow.com/q/251395/19679 . The others might build up, but the suggested edits queue is usually pretty low because of how quickly these are reviewed. Stats seem to show a decrease in suggested edits over the last month, not a spike, so why the buildup? – Brad Larson Mar 28 '17 at 14:37
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    @BradLarson it's because of the new top-bar which doesn't redirect to this queue automatically anymore: meta.stackoverflow.com/questions/343100/… – Cœur Mar 28 '17 at 15:24
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    Truthfully, I didn't even realise the queue was a problem. Usually if I have time I hit up close votes (currently 9.7k in queue) because I recently discovered it was a problem. Knowing that Suggested Edits also gets full (and that there's a 200 limit) I might look there instead / as well (although I guess more people have access to that queue) – Tas Mar 28 '17 at 21:25

The restrictions on the Suggested Edits queue were put in place because there were many bad editors, whose edits were happily Approved by robo-reviewers. There was a feature request on MSE to rate limited edit suggestions, which was responded to.

These restrictions are:

  • At most 200 edits in the queue
  • At most 5 suggested edits per user, 20 on beta sites.

On to your proposed solutions:

Removing the suggested edit queue limit:

The queue could become very big, and it would take even longer for the edits to be handled. Edits need to be handled with a certain amount of speed because they block subsequent edits.

Raise the suggested edit queue limit from its current setting at 200:

I'd be willing to try this. On Stack Overflow, maybe 300 is a good value. We'd need some research, and some trial-and-error.

Empower more users to approve suggested edits:

No. Given the amount of robo-reviewers out there already, I don't want more people empowered to review edits. What we need isn't more reviewers, we need more good reviewers.

Another thing we could do is to make it harder to suggest edits. I've seen plenty of edit suggestions that were just lazy. Like fixing a spelling mistake in a post, but only fixing it once, even it if it occurs several times. This kind of edit is just lazy, and there is no need for this to fill up the queue.

Or, we could limit the amount of edit suggestions per user even further, like lowering it from 5 to 3. But I'm not convinced this will help.

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    Are there any measures in place to ban users for a suggesting edits for any given reason, such as too many rejected suggested edits? Similar to failing an audit. – Bugs Mar 28 '17 at 7:54
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    @Bugs IIRC there are two. Too many rejected edits will cause an automatic edit suspension. And moderators can give edit suspensions manually. – S.L. Barth Mar 28 '17 at 7:59
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    Or, if the problem is small but valid edits, like i->I, punctuation or tag changes, simply make those edits easier to accomplish. Leave the queue for actual, substantial changes. – code11 Mar 28 '17 at 13:24
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    @code11 How would you differentiate between a small valid edit, and a small invalid edit? I've seen people try to change "I" into "i". Or slapping textbook meta-tags on as many questions as they could find. – S.L. Barth Mar 28 '17 at 13:32
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    @S.L.Barth another queue perhaps? /s Maybe you don't. Maybe you just allow those changes but don't give rep for them (as determined by characters changed). I have no idea why a tag change gives as much rep as an actual helpful edit, but thats probably the cause of the suggestion queue always being full. – code11 Mar 28 '17 at 13:34
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    @code11 If we're going to allow minor edits freely, there should at least be a rep threshold. Or it'll open the floodgates to bad minor edits. As a side note, we used to have a "retag" privilege at 1500 rep, but it was rolled into edit. – S.L. Barth Mar 28 '17 at 13:45
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    @S.L.Barth, sure, but for entirely selfish reasons I think the minor edits privilege should be at 500 ;) In more seriousness, the ability to contribute to triage seems about on par, if not more consequential than this proposed privilege. – code11 Mar 28 '17 at 13:49
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    On Stack Overflow maybe 1,000 would be good. 300 is still too low. – TylerH Mar 28 '17 at 14:28
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    @TylerH How is that at all helpful? If edits are being suggested faster than they're being reviewed then increasing the limit will just mean more suggested edits sitting around for longer. It's not actually helping anything, and it's causing harm by locking those posts for a much longer period of time. – Servy Mar 28 '17 at 16:02
  • @Servy Well, its just a derivative off then. Obviously, we should be limiting the rate rather than the amount then for all queues. Or better yet, the reputation rate as Brad Larsons comment on this question suggests: meta.stackoverflow.com/q/326682/1456253 – code11 Mar 28 '17 at 16:08
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    @TylerH But increasing the limit doesn't actually do anything to change the actual number of edits applied, in the long term. It just means that the queue will fill up, and then once it fills up, you're back to square 1, with the only change being that edits take longer to be approved, and the actual number of edits suggested/resolved staying exactly the same. – Servy Mar 28 '17 at 16:46
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    @Servy I disagree, at least several data points here (various people complaining about it and asking questions on meta as to why they can't suggest more edits or why the queue is full) indicate that it would change the actual number of edits. Sure, a limit of 1000 might be a bit hyperbolic, but the problem is that a lot of edits are made because its convenient for the editor to make them. Rarely will someone return to a question and edit it later if they're stopped from doing so when they try the first time. We miss out on getting these edits at all because of the artificially low limit. – TylerH Mar 28 '17 at 19:12
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    @Servy It's true that you would need to continue to increase the limit as more users join and the rate at which suggested edits are submitted increases. But this suggestion is not intended to be a one-time panacea to last forever. It is a useful measure at least in the interim. Instead of doing nothing for potentially ever, due it it being 'hard', let's make a simple adjustment that alleviates the issue for a short while which will give the devs some breathing room on this issue (though I doubt it's even on their radar). – TylerH Mar 28 '17 at 21:56
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    Prioritize suggested edit reviews based on a percentage changed, under a certain percentage it goes into another pile that doesn't get seen unless all of the more important edits are reviewed. Then make that pile not block edits against their respective posts, and if someone overwrites the edit with a better one, the first edit is just abandoned. – user4639281 Mar 28 '17 at 23:47
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    Have there been any considerations for adding a minimum reputation requirement for suggesting edits? Something small, like 10 or 20? – Stevoisiak Apr 27 '17 at 16:53

It's a shame of the amount of posts that require editing. First point of call would be to educate the author so they do it themselves and do it right. Links to How to Ask, MCVE and to the Tour page are helpful to new users. The opinion I take is, if they can be bothered to read these links, make the recommended changes then they'll get the help. If they don't people should avoid the question. No effort from them equals no effort from us.

What I call pointless edits

As a reviewer you often see edits that are pointless. By pointless I mean changing I am to I'm. This should not be happening and it's those kinds of suggestions we don't want to see. For this, we need to educate people but I fear this is a losing battle. There are always new users wanting to make similar pointless edits.

Editing off-topic posts

This happens quite often. A post comes on looking something like this:

[enter image description here][x]

I have code that shows error. What happening? this is URGENT!!!!

Let's say hypothetically, this post is from a new user asking us to look at some code which they have yet to post. They have included the error as a screenshot.

There are edits that can be made. The question is, should they be made? I don't think they should be made. This post is off-topic under:


Again we need to educate. You could however restrict suggested edits being made on posts that have been closed leaving it to those with full edit privileges.

I've probably made edits to such posts when I was new. You start to become accustomed to how things work by watching others. Now I would leave a comment telling the OP to visit the Help Center (providing links) and I'd flag the post.


There are small changes which also end up in the queue. Something as simple as retagging. This can be important to the question. A simple miss-tag can often lead to a question being heavily down voted. They end up in the same queue as suggested edits and can take a while to be processed. A quicker way would be to introduce a queue primarily for retagging which is open to 2k+ users. You could take it further to only allow people with experience in the tag (badges would show this) but I think that would be too restrictive. Is it worth the development time? I'm unsure but it's an idea.

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    Disagri ubout typos bein poinless edets. Typos produce friction. – agc Apr 3 '17 at 14:36
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    @agc that did humour me. Seeing that pop on my phone gave me quite a smile. I am however isn't a typo and doesn't need to be changed to I'm. That being said if you asked a question with that much typo, it would probably be closed as unclear. – Bugs Apr 3 '17 at 14:43
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    Eye all ways lode spell cheque be four eye post two you're cite. Dew knot four get how a May zing are maw dern daze our. Too maw row and bee yonder! – Robert Columbia Apr 4 '17 at 0:48
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    No edits required for you @RobertColumbia that made perfect sense haha – Bugs Apr 4 '17 at 5:39

Agree with S.L. Barth's answer. We need more good reviewers, not more reviewers.

We must find a way to identify good reviewers. And possibly add more weightage to their "approve" or "reject" votes. How about that?

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    So how do you intend to distinguish such reviewers? – Servy Mar 29 '17 at 13:54
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    @Servy I have no answer to that currently. I wish I had one, though. – NVZ Mar 29 '17 at 13:57
  • But to be fair, you can't get more GOOD reviewers without getting more reviewers. – SandPiper Jun 17 '17 at 21:25
  1. Use a separate edit queue for experienced editors. That is, if an editor has a large number of successful edits, combined with a small number of rejected edits, the ratio of both numbers being less than some arbitrarily strict maximum, dub them an Editor, (or some other distinctive name), and put their edits in an editor suggested edits queue that is in some way or other speedier than the ordinary edit queue.

    The theory would be that experienced editors have lower odds of producing dud edits, therefore it saves resources not to perform the redundant labor of checking those edits quite as often.

    OTOH, such a measure would likely make the regular edit queue more tedious to review...

  2. Improve the closing flag radio button menus. Currently there are additional options below some buttons, (and some below those), but the buttons do not make that difference visually clear before choosing a button. Such interface disclarity needlessly consumes user/editor time.

  3. Automate some obvious editing jobs.

    • If a user fails to use capitalization or punctuation, auto reject the message, or auto edit it, and let them check "OK".
    • Same for obvious blocks of unquoted code.
    • Mine editor data for most common unambiguous typos, (i.e. "dont", "im", etc.), and automate rejecting/editing.
  4. Improve editing queue review tools.

    • Automate trivial unambiguous edits, (i.e. s/ im / I'm/, etc.). Mining the queue data presumably would turn up some. Therefore if a user submits one of those, assume it's correct. If that's the only edit, it needn't be reviewed by a human. If there are other edits, process and approve the unambiguous tweaks before the reviewer sees it, to save them the brain cells.
  • IM is often used for Instant Message or other stuff: stackoverflow.com/search?tab=votes&q=title%3aim – Cœur Apr 17 '17 at 17:25
  • @Cœur, IM is upper case, and therefore could be left alone. "(Im)mutable" could be parsed by context. Note that an automated trivial unambiguous edit needn't be a universal fix for every possible typo -- all it needs to be is correct for some typos, some of the time, and never or seldom incorrect, or modifiable if incorrect so that it improves its hit/miss ratio. – agc Apr 18 '17 at 10:23

Just to fill in on what was actually done, it seems that the review limits were temporarily relaxed so I got 40 per day. Now the queue is back to normal and my quota is 20 reviews per day in this queue.

(Reporting my personal experience; I guess this applied to everyone but it could be that some limits depend on your rep as well?)


Has there been any thought into adding a minimum reputation requirement for suggested edits? If the queue is flooded with low quality edits, it may help to add a small reputation requirement of 10 or 20.

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    The whole purpose of having suggested edits is to exist for the sake of people that don't have the ability to edit posts without review. Additionally, while you can run the stats and see for yourself, in my personal experiences, there isn't a super large portion of edits from users with that little rep, and those edits don't' tend to be of any lower quality that edits by users with more rep. If you'd want this suggestion to hold weight you'd want to get stats on how many edits this would prevent, and what the accept rate is on those edits. – Servy Apr 27 '17 at 17:04
  • I don't understand how anybody can suggest edits, but commenting is reserved only to users with +50 rep. So I like your suggestion, and I believe it will prevent all those +2 extra rep unnecessary edits. – Alon Eitan Apr 27 '17 at 17:06
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    @AlonEitan Slight correction. Any user can suggest an edit, but only users with 2,000 rep can edit posts without review. – Stevoisiak Apr 27 '17 at 17:07
  • @StevenVascellaro Yep, I know, and just edited my comment about specifically that – Alon Eitan Apr 27 '17 at 17:08
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    @AlonEitan Anyone can suggest an edit because (at least in theory) any inappropriate edits would be filtered out by review. Comments aren't reviewed (and couldn't possibly be, in any practical sense) hence the need for a rep requirement. – Servy Apr 27 '17 at 17:21
  • @Servy Oh! Now I finally understand this, up until now, ridiculous limitation – Alon Eitan Apr 27 '17 at 17:23

I'll sum up a few suggestions from comments:

educate editors

When doing an edit, some obvious notice could remind about core recommendations to follow for editing a post and filling an edit summary. This would allow easier reviewing and consequently less disputed reviews.

educate reviewers

When doing a review, some obvious notice could remind about core recommendations to follow for reviewing a suggested edit. This would allow less disputed reviews.

rollback top-bar review button redirect

A month ago, with the new top-bar, the review button stopped redirecting to suggested-edits and instead is now redirecting to the list of queues. Rolling back this change would make people focus on the suggested-edits queue like before.

split the queue

It has been suggested to separate this queue between post edits and tag wiki edits. Hence, an increased total number of queued edits.

It has also been suggested to allow filtering on this queue for easier and faster focus on some edits.

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    1. that information is already presented but no one reads it. 2, that information is already presented but no one reads it 3. I'd rather have it be a drop down menu as they have said they are planning to do 4. You can only review tag wiki edits once you hit 5k, and given that the majority of suggested edit reviewers are probably below the 5k mark, I don't think this would help anything. – user4639281 Mar 28 '17 at 23:50

I suppose I will weigh in with two major assumptions and a possible suggestion:

  • Many if not most of these suggested edits are "minor edits", ie code-block fixes, tag fixes, punctuation, and things like i->I.
  • Although these suggestions do clog up the queue in the current system, these actions can still be beneficial to the site as a whole. (No one wants ugly or hard to read questions)

Unfortunately, because of the ease of making these types of edits (as opposed to "real" edits like rephrasing, or heavy grammatical changes) low rep users (like me...) prefer these sorts of edits since the rep pay out is the same for less effort.

Therefore, I propose a new privilege:

At 500 rep, the same level you gain access to the triage queue, you gain the ability to make "minor edits" without going through the suggestion queue but you get no reputation for making these changes (disincentivizing spam).

What is a "minor edit"? I think it should be some low character count + retagging. If there were an automated way of detecting code-block only changes, that should be included as well.

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    Why would we want to encourage people to be making more of these edits? And just because an edit isn't touching a large number of characters doesn't mean it's minor, and doesn't mean it's correct. People could use this to introduce inappropriate content into posts, break code, vandalize content, remove essential tags, etc. and end up bypassing review in the process. – Servy Mar 28 '17 at 15:57
  • @Servy Valid points. I wanted to strike a balance between recognizing that some of these edits are actually helpful, if queue clogging and keeping reviewless edits behind a rep barrier while still allowing low rep users to contribute. – code11 Mar 28 '17 at 16:06

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