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I just saw (it's approved now) a suggested edit that appeared to just be retagging - adding two tags. The user who proposed it actually had enough rep to retag questions, but presumably didn't realize there was a hidden retag link by the tags, and simply clicked "edit".

Perhaps suggested edits could be automatically applied if they're actually just retagging, and the user has the necessary rep?

Note: I'm not suggesting that reputation be awarded, just that the "suggested edit" be turned into a plain ol' retag.

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Retag as a separate privilege has been removed. Note that immediately prior to that, this change was implemented - it ended up just causing more headaches though. –  Shogging through the snow Sep 10 '13 at 4:55

3 Answers 3


Doing any kind of direct edit to a post is always subject to peer review anyway. In the case of a retagging, you usually get at least a review by the question author, and the worst that happens is a rollback.

There are two advantages of submitting such a change through the suggested edits channel:

  • The editor gets extra peer review. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but if a user has enough rep to make these kinds of changes on their own and they're still unsure about it, then I'm not sure the retagger is qualified to make the change in the first place, and should simply leave the post alone.

  • This gains the editor reputation, whereas retagging directly does not. I think this aspect should be reviewed by the team, as giving rep for an activity that normally does not gain rep probably isn't desired behaviour.

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I never meant to suggest that someone should get reputation this way. Your "mostly" is in fact "completely", I believe. –  Jefromi Feb 7 '11 at 3:40
@Jefromi: Ah yes, okay. My misunderstanding. Edited. –  Jon Seigel Feb 7 '11 at 3:49

Alternatively leave it in place. Example:

I think this should really be tagged as 'foo' and 'bar' but I'm not sure. I now it already has 'baz' but that's too generic. I'm going to propose the tags but let somebody else agree so that I know I'm not the only one. If someone disagrees, well, that's fine too, I wasn't sure to begin with.

But maybe that's just me.

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Hm, so we assume that anyone using the suggested edit feature is this aware of the details? Not too sure that's the case, but even assuming it is... the core idea of suggested edits is to allow users who could't edit questions a way to take a stab at it. 500 rep users already can retag - so why do they need a way to do so less effectively? And that way disappears once they hit 3k rep. If that's a good idea, then shouldn't there be a way for users from 3k-18k rep to propose "I'm not sure" edits to questions? –  Jefromi Feb 6 '11 at 19:45
@jefromi ~ I personally would use the feature like this, yes. But then again, I spend way too much time in the chatrooms to not get someone's opinion on the spot. But I wouldn't discount that option. Besides, I was trying to present "the other side" from your viewpoint, because I see the merit in what you're saying. Just that when you're in the 500-1500 point range you're still not always sure about the site. Or at least, I wasn't. –  jcolebrand Feb 6 '11 at 19:47
I do get what you're saying; it's a quite reasonable other side. My view tends to be a little more along these lines: if you have the rep to do something, and you're not sure if you should, just don't do it. My main concern here is really more pragmatic, anyway: get retagging edits through immediately and without troubling anyone to approve them. (Also, oops, editing questions is 2k, not 3k.) –  Jefromi Feb 6 '11 at 19:50
I thought it was 2k on non-SO sites, and 3k on SO, but no, that's close votes that takes 3k ;) –  jcolebrand Feb 6 '11 at 20:08


Strongly disagree here, in fact I am starting to doubt we really want users with 500-2000 rep retagging. If a user feels like going for the 2 rep bonus for a smart retag as opposed to clicking the retag button, go for it. The suggested edit system is not going to make anybody reputation rich. If a user neglected to notice retag was an option, it is probably better that his edit goes through the suggested edit system anyway.

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Well, I'd also be okay with raising the rep limit for retagging to be the same as editing. I'm just aiming for consistency, not trying to defend the current retagging rep cutoff. –  Jefromi Feb 7 '11 at 14:52
"If a user feels like going for the 2 rep bonus for a smart retag as opposed to clicking the retag button, go for it." So we reward a user who decides to create work for the reviewers instead of clicking retag? Should we also have a "suggest edit" button for 2k+ users, so that they can put their edits through the suggestion system? And I admit that 2 rep isn't much, but hey, do it 500 times and you're halfway to full edit privileges. Jeff explicitly called this "a nice way to gain reputation and bootstrap less active users into full members of the community." –  Jefromi Feb 7 '11 at 20:18
I just went through the suggested edits queue for a retag on Super User because it's the only site I have retagging-but-not-global-editing rights on, so I didn't even know there was a retag button distinct from the edit button to begin with (back in my days, we just had retag, which is then replaced by edit at 2k. Those youngens.) Isn't this unnecessary burden on mods and 10kers? You already trust me to retag... –  badp May 8 '11 at 10:02

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