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I know this has been asked before, but obviously there's still something that keeps this from being implemented/fixed.

I am a pretty active editor on Stack Overflow. In fact, I do edit a lot more questions than I answer. I have the Strunk-and-White badge, and if that one would stack I would have it several times by now. I am pretty high-rep — in short: I know what I'm doing.


When a question has been edited by someone whose edit needs approval, I cannot "instant-approve" his edit. Why on earth should another user be needed to approve my decision?

I know, if I go to "improve", I can overwrite the suggested edit. But that's not what I want. Especially if the edit is good, why should I take credit for it?

If I click "approve" instead, the system doesn't even let me "improve" the edit anymore. Seriously, this makes no sense at all.

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1 Answer 1

I strongly support this.

I'm a 50k user. I have been around for >2 years. I have the Copy Editor gold badge. I mostly edit in a tag for which I have a gold badge (and would have four of those, if they could be stacked). I'm usually careful when editing, and when I'm not sure I ask regulars in the chat about their opinion.

I can edit any question or answer myself, even in tags on subjects I have no idea about, I can roll back or override any other user's edit at free will — except when some 47rep newbie has just sneaked an edit in there 2secs before me and I need to sit and twiddle my thumbs waiting for some other user's approval vote. This just makes no sense.

What's the rationale for requiring two votes from users who could just as well do the very same edit on their own without any approval? Surely I can be trusted to approve some other user's action on my own if I am trusted to do the very same action unapproved on my own?!

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This sounds really good, but apparently it didn't work out in practice. –  Pops Feb 3 '12 at 15:53
@PopularDemand I don't have the feeling the post you linked to and this describe the same situation. –  Tomalak Feb 3 '12 at 16:03
@Tomalak, you're right, the situations described are different. However, that's not the point. The other question describes a problem that Jeff attempted to fix by reinstating the multiple reviewers rule. If we took away the multiple reviewers rule, that problem would presumably return. Therefore we cannot remove the multiple reviewers rule even though sbi makes reasonable points in this answer. Since Jeff has access to all the data, and I've only seen a few suggested edits here and there, I'm going to take his word on this one. –  Pops Feb 3 '12 at 16:20
@PopularDemand: IIUC, this argues for multiple reviewers in order to prevent rogue editing. If rogue edits are indeed a problem, and if it is more severe than high-rep users being unable to make suggested edits due to existing edits pending approval, then I would still like to have the possibility to cancel and unapproved edit and do my edit. As it is, the situation is absolutely unsatisfying. There is a reason why users keep whining about this like they do. –  sbi Feb 3 '12 at 16:47
Clever. We had a problem with one-person accepts, but probably not with one-person rejects. I think I could get behind that. –  Pops Feb 3 '12 at 16:52
On dba.stackexchange.com it only requires 1 approver. Is it just SO that requires 2? In any event I agree that the current system could do with improvement. Perhaps if the approval comes directly from someone that accessed the proposed edit from the question itself rather than the review tab it should only require 1 approver. As such approvers are more likely to be familiar with the question context and the tag in general than someone just scanning a whole load of random reviews. –  Martin Smith Feb 3 '12 at 17:21

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