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The Suggested Edits Review Queue contains five buttons for actions to take on suggested edits, two of which allow the reviewing user to edit the post further.

The only difference between the "Improve Edit" and the "Reject and Edit" button is the text presented for the user to edit, and the presence/absence of the 2 reputation gained to the proposer. Usually we press "Improve" if the suggested edit was helpful, and "Reject and Edit" if it was not.

Some edits, like this one, have some good and some bad aspects of them. While editing the content of the post to be good, they also introduced minor spelling/grammar errors into the post. Either way, I was going to have to edit the post to fix it, but I did not know whether I should mark the edit as good or bad, and I clicked Reject and Edit without thinking. Now, thinking back, I probably would have marked it as a good edit were I in the same situation again.

Please provide your thoughts on whether you'd press "Improve" or "Reject + Edit" in the following situations (considering just whether we should mark the suggested edit as good or bad, not considering the amount of text you will have to edit). Some of these are quite similar, it's okay to say that you would evaluate it the same as one or more of the others:

  1. The suggester adds new content that clarifies the issue (without changing its meaning) but the new content has some spelling/grammar/formatting issues. The old content is left unchanged.
  2. The suggester adds new content that clarifies the issue (without changing its meaning) but wrongly believes that the content should be formatted differently. They change the old content to match the way they think it should be formatted (which is wrong) and the new content contains the same (wrong) style of formatting.
    Example: The suggester adds new content that clarifies the issue, but capitalizes many words that should not be capitalized.
  3. The suggester fixes spelling/grammar/formatting issues but does not add any content that the post looks to be in dire need of.
    Example: The post is in dire need of an example of an issue which is easy to provide, but the suggester fails to add that and only fixes spelling and grammar.
  4. The suggester fixes spelling/grammar/formatting from a horribly formatted post but adds content that does not match the issue. Example: A post is poorly formatted, almost to the point that a VLQ flag would be raised on it, but the issue is still decipherable. The suggester fixes the post up, but also adds an example that on first glance looks like it would fit well with the post, but on closer inspection seems like it would be for a different issue.
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  • 1
    Related: How do I handle partially correct edits in the Suggested Edits review queue?
    – Glorfindel
    Commented Jun 30, 2020 at 6:18
  • "The only difference between the "Improve Edit" and the "Reject and Edit" button is the template presented for the user to edit" No. If the edit was significant, the difference will also be significant. 'Improve' will start based on the edits proposed, while 'Reject' will start based on the original revision. 'Reject and edit' is basically rejecting the edit and opening a new edit window (but only if you complete the edit). A bigger difference than just a template.
    – Mast
    Commented Jun 30, 2020 at 16:57
  • @Mast What you just said was what I originally meant in the post.
    – One 2 Many
    Commented Jun 30, 2020 at 17:00
  • That was not clear.
    – Mast
    Commented Jun 30, 2020 at 17:00
  • @Mast I think the word "template" threw you off. I'll find a better replacement word.
    – One 2 Many
    Commented Jun 30, 2020 at 17:11

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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TLDR: Don't focus on the giving of rep, focus on signalling to the editor whether their action was useful/helpful or not.

You are focusing on the wrong thing. Don't focus on the giving of rep (you only give rep when you award a bounty), focus on the edit.

The first thing to do is to decide is this edit good or not. To see if it is a good edit, lets looks at reasons why we should reject an edit: enter image description here

If the edit doesn't fall into one of these categories, it's probably a good edit. However, if it does fall into these categories, you should reject it (if it makes 1-2 spelling fixes, but leaves a lot unfixed, I would probably reject it under no improvement).

After you decide whether to approve or reject the edit, you then look to see if you can either improve the edit or improve the unedited version. If you can you adjust to Improve Edit, or Reject and Edit based on your prior selection.

The whole point of reviewing is to help the person who preformed the action know if what they did was acceptable or not. If they fixed a bunch of spelling, but maybe missed some formatting issues that's still a helpful edit, just one that could be improved. If they fix 2 misspellings, but leave 10 more obvious ones, I would reject it to signal to the editor that they should look to fix all spelling issues that are there. If they instead fixed almost all spelling issues, but missed 1 I would approve and improve the edit, as they showed a clear attempt at fixing all issues in the post.

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  • Isn’t the rep what signals whether the edit was good or not? It's simple, gibbing the rep signals that it was good, not giving it signals that the edit was bad.
    – One 2 Many
    Commented Jun 30, 2020 at 19:40
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    @ExpertCoder14 you don’t give them the rep though. The system awards it to them if they do something that is deemed useful by the community. Don’t look at the process as determining if they should get rep or not, look at it as determining if the action was helpful or not.
    – Dragonrage Mod
    Commented Jun 30, 2020 at 19:43
  • Oh right, because the rep only comes if the edit is approved overall, not based on one reviewer's outlook. I edited my post.
    – One 2 Many
    Commented Jun 30, 2020 at 19:55

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