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It would be nice to allow users to mark a change in an answer (or question) as minor (e.g. for a simple spelling or grammar correction). A change marked as minor wouldn't push the question on top of the list of questions on the home page or in the feeds. It wouldn't trigger any notification. This could be implemented with a "Minor change" checkbox when editing an entry (a la Confluence). What do you think?

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Why the downvote BTW? –  Pascal Thivent Oct 19 '09 at 19:26
@Pascal Thivent - Most likely someone is not in favor of implementing your suggestion. That's all. It's nothing personal, meta-ly speaking. –  Robert Cartaino Oct 19 '09 at 19:29
@Robert Ok, thanks –  Pascal Thivent Oct 19 '09 at 19:30
The downvotes are a way to subtle discourage users from suggesting features. Just kidding... sorta. –  kanamekun Oct 19 '09 at 19:56
@kanamekun well, that's actually almost the case... –  Pascal Thivent Oct 19 '09 at 20:03
I don't know if I should accept any answer here. If yes, on which criteria. This is very confusing actually, I don't like how this works. –  Pascal Thivent Oct 26 '09 at 22:10
@PascalThivent: I somewhat think it's pointless having Accept buttons on Meta sites. –  Tshepang Jan 10 '12 at 9:52
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7 Answers

Implementing any sort of "don't bump" functionality would also delay accountability and transparency for those edits.

Notifying users of edits in the system allows them to take a look at the content and make sure there isn't something fishy going on. Imagine if people could make changes to the system without anybody noticing. That is very exploitable.

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Good point. But... would this happen? I mean, Wiki are open and do work. Or maybe I'm too naive and it actually happens and people have to revert changes when they notice it. I'm doubting now... –  Pascal Thivent Oct 19 '09 at 20:07
What if a bot came in and added spam to posts that are long-gone from the front pages. No one would notice for a long time. –  Robert Cartaino Oct 19 '09 at 20:10
Even bumping isn't a perfect solution for that though - if I'm asleep and someone edits a question I've responded to (or similar), what's the odds of it being on the front page when I wake up? This is why we to be able to have proper notifications for changes to questions/answers we have been involved with. –  Peter Boughton Oct 19 '09 at 20:14
@Robert That's what Captcha are for. Bumping is not a solution to bot spam. –  Pascal Thivent Oct 19 '09 at 20:51
It's not like just because something doesn't bump to the active threads list that there's no other way to track it. First, users could be prevented from making minor edits until a certain sufficiently high rep, perhaps initially very high (like 5k). Secondly, there could simply be a tab for minor edits. Any abuse there, marking obviously non-minor edits as such, or hiding vandalism as a minor edit, could result in a quick ban. –  Ocaasi Aug 6 '10 at 5:27
@Ocaasi I agree. The system could also trigger a Captcha verification for minor edits. –  Pascal Thivent Sep 20 '10 at 17:44
OK, can I at least fix my own answers then without bumping and without counting as an edit towards the CW count? –  Richard Gadsden Oct 28 '10 at 21:22
This rationale is weak; I don't think it's worth spamming the front page with mass-edits for the (low) chance that someone will take a look and go "oh look, spam". –  womble Jul 31 '11 at 3:37
In addition to @Ocaasi's suggestions, these "minor" edits could require peer review before being accepted. (And perhaps even in a separate queue than other edits, so users who don't care to be bothered by them don't have to). As a minor-editor myself, I'd be happy to approve other's minor edits as well. –  Flimzy Sep 27 '11 at 0:14
Yeah, I'm with @Flimzy. Why can't these minor edits be handled exactly like regular edits -- same rep requirements, peer review, etc -- with the only exception being that they don't bump the thread to the front page? –  Nick Chammas Nov 2 '11 at 5:51
-1: "Imagine if people could make changes to the system without anybody noticing. That is very exploitable." That's a strawman argument. Well, it is now. We have all the tools necessary to see edits on old posts by random people without having the question be bumped. So there's nothing to exploit, and thus this argument is irrelevant. –  Nicol Bolas Jan 18 '12 at 16:48
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It would be good if this request were re-evaluated, in light of modern edit reviewing technology.

Paŭlo Ebermann speaks correctly about this issue when it pertains to slower sites. A site that only gets 50 questions per day is still a good site. But if you make 20 edits, you're pushing good questions off the top.

I see this happen on Gamedev.se all the time, when one of the mods goes on a re-tagging spree. It's important to do that kind of maintenance work. But it shouldn't clutter the front page.

This isn't an enforced thing. We're not even asking for the option to be default. Just to have it be there for those who need to make a minor change to a post that doesn't warrant it bumping other content off the front page.

We have tools to see people editing posts. We have tools to see people making edits to old posts. We have tools to prevent these people from making malicious edits.

In short: Robert Cartaino♦'s argument about exploitation is simply no longer valid.

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I think such things should be reviewed. If a mod edits tag out of a question probably not, but for non-diamond/non-trusted users? Maybe make it a privilege? –  Johannes Kuhn Aug 30 '13 at 16:31
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(I just was typing this for a question which then got closed as a duplicate before I finished. I'll post it here, thus.)

There are several points to think about, here.

The edit bumps questions to front page feature has these goals:

  • If a question is edited, maybe it is now easier to answer => People should look at it, and maybe upvote/answer it.
  • If an answer is edited, it could now be a good answer => People should look at it to upvote it.
  • Maybe an edit made something worse. => People should look at it, and maybe revert the edit, if necessary.

On the other hand, bumping many old questions to the front page has the effect that people don't see the new questions anymore.

For example, in the last some days I edited all questions with "question" in the title on tex.stackexchange.com. After about 6 such edits I got a comment request to slow down ... since my edited questions came faster than new ones. I then changed to a "one per hour" rhythm (on average).

(Some of these questions were further edited then by other users, and I think some even got new answers.)

This is particularly bad for small sites - Stack Overflow has no such problem (for normal editing speeds), though it might affect people who follow the tags which I'm just editing.

So, if you simply don't do this too often, the bumping is not a real problem. (Of course, if multiple people do the same, it again gets a problem ...)

I'm not sure how to solve this - maybe have a kind of "approve" feature so another user will confirm that this edit both

  • is not malicious
  • does not make the post so much better that it should be bumped

Or, as Michael said, simply put a size limit. But some edits (like adding/removing a "not") can quite change the meaning of a post.

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Apologies if this has already been mentioned (there are several more-or-less similar proposals, with multiple comments and answers each, but I have not found the same combination).

How about the following?

  1. An editor can click a different (adjacent) button to save as a minor edit. (Single click, not a check box plus click to save.)

  2. Such a minor edit would not add much to the editor's rep, since less time, effort, understanding etc. is needed. It should count for something, however.

  3. Likewise, a review of a minor edit should count less for the reviewer rep, for the same reason.

  4. A reviewer can choose to see minor edits also or only non-minor edits, the latter by default.

  5. When a reviewer views a minor edit it is clearly labeled as such.

  6. A reviewer can still decide to reject a minor edit because it is too minor (not helpful), but will typically be less likely to do so. The edit is not trying to pass itself off as a significant change that is worth much. It is trying to pass itself off as an improvement, even if minor, and it can be rejected if the reviewer thinks it adds nothing.

The advantage for an editor is that the edit is less likely to be rejected for being too minor. S?he will get some points for helping a little, but not many points since helping only a little.

The advantage for SO is that cosmetic edits will get done instead of being avoided, improving readability and thus communication. There might be fewer comments asking for clarification etc., as users help each other by cleaning things up in "insignificant" ways.

An editor can decide at the time of saving whether s?he thinks the edit is worth normal points (and thus risk being closed if a reviewer thinks it is too minor) or worth only minor-change points. IOW, the editor judges the editing result when done, and makes a bet wrt its worth.

#4 might take care of the problems mentioned wrt minor edits being sent to the top/front and crowding out normal edits and creating extra work for reviewers. A reviewer would see them only by explicitly asking to see them.

Minor changes might not get accepted as quickly, since some reviewers might not bother with them, as they are worth less. And that might not be altogether bad -- they are after all less important. But at least they would have a chance at being accepted -- they are some help, even if not a great help.

Again, apologies if these suggestions have been made before. I didn't find this combination suggested.

Postscript: Perhaps another possibility would be to have reviewers of an edit click a new button, OK as Minor, which would accept the edit as a minor edit, with as consequence reducing the points to be awarded to the editor.

I really think it's a shame to reject edits that improve things, even if in only a minor way. Such edits are being rejected not because they reduce the quality but only to fit the SO rewards system, which in this case is fairly coarse-grained: significant improvement or none. That's not ideal.

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Your point 3 is invalid, there is no rep gained from reviewing. –  Mat Aug 30 '13 at 14:38
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Instead of being denoted manually, some sort of heuristic could be used - e.g. if fewer than 1% of the post's characters have changed, it's a "minor edit". It might be tricky to get right though.

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They already do some of that for display and it is terribly buggy. Why do you think it would be any more accurate if it were controlling functionality? –  GEOCHET Oct 19 '09 at 19:44
I find this more complex and less accurate than a simple checkbox. –  Pascal Thivent Oct 19 '09 at 19:47
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Recently Jeff repeated his opinion about not supporting a trivial edit checkbox:


(This matches Robert's answer, and I agree, even though nowadays there's peer review for those <2k.)

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He was specifically talking about hiding edits from view. That's not this; we're just talking about removing the bump effect. –  Nicol Bolas Jan 18 '12 at 16:45
I kind of doubt that, @Nicol, but maybe I am interpreting "vetted" wrongly. Still then, in the comments on the very same answer Jeff writes: "We want people to look at and review what is on the front page, not sweep it under the rug so lots of weird, bad, secret edits can go on." –  Arjan Jan 18 '12 at 17:34
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No, the bumping behavior is explicitly by design so you can get attention on older posts by making simple edits.

Also, adding more complexity for a non-existent problem is something the SO development team is not going to do.

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I'm not against the bumping, I just find nice to be able to decide to not bump. And BTW, are you a SO developer? –  Pascal Thivent Oct 19 '09 at 19:29
I agree that it shouldn't be implemented, but I disagree that the SO team hasn't made things more complex for no reason before. –  GEOCHET Oct 19 '09 at 19:34
@Rich B - very good point... –  John Rasch Oct 19 '09 at 19:48
@Pascal - no, but I've seen a response of "we won't modify the database" and "no reason to add more complexity" from Jeff more than once - and you'd have to do both in order to implement this –  John Rasch Oct 19 '09 at 19:51
@John Wrong, no model modification is required, it's just a matter of updating a timestamp or not. And if you consider that any feature add complexity, then stop doing anything, it adds complexity! Seriously, please let someone really involved take such a position. Thanks. –  Pascal Thivent Oct 19 '09 at 19:58
@Pascal - huh? Edits are stored in a revision table, each one with a timestamp. You would definitely need a bit flag in there that indicates whether or not it appears on the active tab for that particular edit. As for new features, they will add them if the benefits outweigh the costs; I don't have to be an SO developer to realize that. I've been around long enough to guarantee you that this will never be implemented because they'll have to spend several man-hours adding something that prevents month old posts from bumping because you change "teh" to "the"? Who cares? –  John Rasch Oct 20 '09 at 0:07
@John Ok, you might be right. But maybe the model is denormalized and "entries" are shown on the home page, not "revisions". And maybe "entries" have another timestamp than "revisions". Actually, I don't know and I don't care. Then, you're not famous, you aren't a SO developer, so I don't care either about you being around long enough to guarantee anything. I would like to hear the point of view of people involved, not people who think they are important and omniscient. Finally, you don't like this improvement? Well, as you said, who cares? –  Pascal Thivent Oct 20 '09 at 9:37
@Pascal - whether it's an improvement or not, you're probably not going to hear the point of view from the "people involved" because currently the majority who have voted are against this feature. If you want their opinion directly you can send them an email at team@stackoverflow.com. The best you're going to get here is people that have witnessed similar feature requests and similar responses from said "people involved", which are summarized in my response. I don't know what more you want than that. You can of course wait indefinitely for a direct answer from Jeff, but probably won't get one. –  John Rasch Oct 20 '09 at 16:02
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