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In the last day, I've noticed a few edits on questions that have been closed for a rather long time (example 1, example 2). While some closed questions can be simply reworded or rephrased to become on-topic and reopenable, the questions I've seen seem like they will never fall into that category.

By editing these questions, we bump off-topic questions back to the front page, wasting space for questions that are actually good questions. Is there a reason I'm missing for why we should be editing these questions?

Edit So now that we can reject suggested edits for custom reasons, is something along the lines of @Raven's "Do not disturb the dead" a reasonable response?

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    I'm partial to a new Suggested Edit Reject reason: "Do not disturb the dead!"
    – Raven Dreamer Mod
    Commented Oct 30, 2011 at 16:51
  • Related question: what criteria do we use to delete closed questions? If a question has been closed because it has never been, is not now, and cannot be made into an on-topic question, deleting it would solve this kind of problem.
    – Ben Blank
    Commented Oct 30, 2011 at 19:39
  • Obviously, at least 16 people + waffles think so. Enough to change the system to allow it. That said, those questions don't fit. The one question I actually suggest an edit on after it was closed was because everyone NARQ-ed it and I think I understood what he was trying to say, so I clarified. Your first example does seem unnecessary, but the second was just a tag edit. We can live without tag edits on a closed question, but if it's going to exist, it may as well be searchable.
    – John the Green
    Commented Oct 31, 2011 at 2:07

2 Answers 2

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I see no reason to be editing either of the two examples given. The first example is partially my fault since I approved the edit thinking that the "question" was an answer that had been posted. However, given the rather unorthodox way that the question was written, I don't think I'm entirely to blame for this. The second example is adding the game-rec tag back into a question, which is bad, since the game-rec tag should be killed entirely by now along with all game-rec questions.

Basically, if a closed question isn't being reworded or rephrased to become on-topic or reopenable, or unless you're removing a tag that shouldn't exist on the site anymore(for example, removing the tag as I am now) I don't think there's any reason to edit it.

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  • I don't think I'm entirely to blame for this. I think you are. You monster.
    – Wipqozn Mod
    Commented Nov 3, 2011 at 13:17
  • One thing to consider is if you're just editing to remove a tag and there is no chance of a question being reopened (such as a game rec or a similarly off-topic kind of thing), you might as well just delete the question instead of retagging it.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Nov 4, 2011 at 2:19
  • @AnnaLear I hadn't considered that somehow! Thanks for the suggestion.
    – Mana Mod
    Commented Nov 4, 2011 at 2:20
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If you think you can salvage a question, I say go for it. As for the two examples, the first one is a statement, and the second isn't salvageable at all.

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