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While going through the review queue yesterday, I came across this edit. At first glance, it appeared to have been an edit that conflicted with the authors intent. I almost rejected it as such until I read the comment by the user who suggested the edit.

Edit 2020: Xfire has gone under and no longer exists.

Looking into further, the user is correct in the statement. Xfire was shut down and no longer provided services in early 2016. Now, the link in the answer directs to an online casino. I approved the edit, but then was rejected by two community members.

I thought about editing the answer myself with the information that was rejected, but I'm not sure on what would be the best approach for this.

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    I've gone ahead and removed the dead link at least, since now it borders on spam
    – Unionhawk Mod
    Commented Jun 9, 2020 at 15:47
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    As with most things it all depends on context... as in this case the link isn't to the original intended destination and is somewhat harmful now I would say overriding the review outcome and editing yourself is more than fine as Unionhawk has done now.
    – TheLethalCarrot
    Commented Jun 9, 2020 at 15:49
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    In general ask yourself if it was something you'd have noticed on your own without knowledge of the review would you make the edit, leave a comment or leave it alone? Of course if possible it's also worth reaching out to the reviewers and asking them about it too.
    – TheLethalCarrot
    Commented Jun 9, 2020 at 15:52
  • @TheLethalCarrot That was along my thought process as well. I would agree it would be based context. I've seen a few review posts like this in the past, which were 100% spam edits. I probably could've just removed the link as well, but wasn't really sure on the other information :)
    – Wondercricket
    Commented Jun 9, 2020 at 15:58
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    If the comment had been integrated into the edit a bit better, I would have allowed it. Putting the comment at the end of the edit is not so much superfluous, but certainly breaks the flow of the answer.
    – MBraedley
    Commented Jun 9, 2020 at 16:02
  • @MBraedley You can of course "Improve Edit".
    – TheLethalCarrot
    Commented Jun 9, 2020 at 16:04
  • I probably would have been more inclined to approve the edit if I had known the link was usurped by an unrelated website, as opposed to being merely dead.
    – pppery
    Commented Jun 9, 2020 at 16:08

1 Answer 1

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What is the appropriate action for editing an answer that was rejected by the community?

If you have full editing privileges, you can perform the edit (or a better version of the edit!) yourself. But if you're unsure if it's the right thing to do, raising it on meta like you have is also a good choice.

For non-obvious spam links (like the Xfire link became), you can also flag for mod attention. Write a custom reason so we know what's going on.

To be clear, this wasn't a bad review outcome: the edit wasn't that great, and a decline was pretty valid. Maybe 'Improve Edit' or 'Reject & Edit' would've been better but that's neither here nor there.

In either case, @Unionhawk removed the spammy link, and I've edited the answer to state that Xfire is now defunct.

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