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I noticed a typo in URL posted in an answer. I know the correct URL, so I decided to correct it. I got this:

Oops! Your edit couldn't be submitted because:


There is nothing more to improve in that answer. There was only single letter to be fixed.

Is there a good reason for this limitation or is it a bug? In my opinion, fixing a typo is a common event and is very valuable (especially in a URL).

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Thanks for duplicate candidates. Note, that here, we talk about typo in URL which was not mentioned in other questions. It's a bit different story because typo in a URL is very annoying. –  Michał Šrajer Sep 20 '11 at 19:20
An actual example might be nice. –  Arjan Sep 20 '11 at 19:58
@Arjan: Sure: askubuntu.com/questions/58825/… –  Michał Šrajer Sep 20 '11 at 22:51
@Michał, I very much agree with Roland's comment there. Bad answer for a Q&A site; see also Are answers that just contain links elsewhere really “good answers”?. –  Arjan Sep 22 '11 at 5:38
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marked as duplicate by Jeff Atwood Sep 20 '11 at 22:52


4 Answers

up vote 2 down vote accepted

Just leave a comment with the corrected link and wait until somebody else fixes it.

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This is what I did. –  Michał Šrajer Sep 20 '11 at 22:53
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There is nothing more to improve in that answer.

I'm not sure I believe that. No answer is so perfect that there is nothing else to improve.

Perhaps something could be formatted better, or a sentence rearranged to make it clearer? I'm sure you can find something to improve if you try a little harder :)

If you really cannot find anything else to improve, just leave a comment. Either the post owner or someone else can then fix it some time later.

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Why? Example question: "What is IP of google public DNS?" example answer: "It is". There is nothing more to add. Sometimes answer is just that short and it's complete. –  Michał Šrajer Sep 20 '11 at 19:10
@MichałŠrajer: You could for example add a link to the google public DNS documentation. I think that would be an improvement. –  hammar Sep 20 '11 at 19:18
I Agree. You managed to improve my example answer. :-) However, I still believe, that there can be a perfect answer with just one serious typo in URL. –  Michał Šrajer Sep 20 '11 at 19:23
While it might be true that no answer is so perfect that there is nothing else to improve, it certainly seems possible that an answer can be too good for a particular individual to improve. It's certainly possible I could be far too ignorant to improve the technical content, and perhaps my skills in the written form of the English language are inferior to that of the original answerer to improve the clarity. That doesn't have to mean I can't fix a typo. –  Michael McGowan Sep 20 '11 at 19:27
@MichaelMcGowan: Fair point. I think in that case, you could just add a comment if it's something important like a broken link, or just leave it otherwise. –  hammar Sep 20 '11 at 19:32
So many times I've seen edit suggestions that left out monstrous formatting errors, awful titles, etc etc etc... –  Won't Sep 20 '11 at 19:52
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I think this is an edge case that doesn't really need a complicated solution.

You can always leave a comment for the poster asking them to correct their typo. You can also flag the post for a moderator, although that's probably overkill. A comment should suffice.

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The workaround could be to add some extra change and then do one more edit to remove that unneeded extra change. However, this is inconvenient and (more importantly) messy.

We don't want mess in SO, right?

If one does not have edit priv it becomes even more messy, because peers will have to review one extra revision.

Leaving comment seems to be best workaround, but it's silly. If I know the fix, I should be able to fix it without other peers extra effort.

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That's considerably more complicated (not to mention that you have to wait for your first edit to be approved before you can suggest another one) than just flagging the answer for a moderator or leaving a comment asking the poster to correct their typo. –  Anna Lear Sep 20 '11 at 19:21
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