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AFAIK users are still not notified when somebody edits their question.

In this question Federico thought he could add a few lines to the question, apparently convinced that the original meaning wasn't changed by the edit.
Kevin doesn't agree and rolls back. So that's two people who think they know what the asker's intentions are, and who come to opposite conclusions. Obvious, because neither actually asked the OP what he meant.

If the asker of a question would be notified of changes she can decide herself if the edit fits with her intent, and rollback if she doesn't agree. This way others don't have to guess about it.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Interesting take on the situation: You didn't address the conflict at hand, but instead made a feature request (oh wait, this is a discussion....was that on purpose?) \$\endgroup\$ Aug 10, 2011 at 19:04
  • \$\begingroup\$ Question about the conflict at hand is here: Expanding a question's scope vs. Starting a new question \$\endgroup\$ Aug 10, 2011 at 19:22
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Kevin - yes that was on purpose. Before I make it a feature request I want to hear what others think about it, hence 'discussion'. \$\endgroup\$
    – stevenvh
    Aug 11, 2011 at 5:45

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If you believe that a user should be notified of an edit, leave a comment. Post owners always get notifications when you comment, and I believe that there will be a number of times that you don't feel compelled to send a notification.

Most of the good reasons to edit:

  • to fix grammatical or spelling mistakes
  • to clarify the meaning of a post without changing it
  • correct minor mistakes or add addendums / updates as the post ages
  • add related resources or hyperlinks

don't require a notification to the post owner, if done correctly. Leave a comment if something might require a notification.

Right now, I check everything that comes into my inbox (and you should too), because it's all stuff that I can (and usually should) act on, like messages in Chat, comments to my posts and comments, and answers to my questions.

If this notification was added, there would be a potential to get non-actionable notifications, like spelling fixes, datasheet links, and formatting improvements. This would diminish the value of the inbox.

Your last four edits to other users' answers are:

Do you really think that notifications should be sent for these actions?

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  • \$\begingroup\$ No, OP shouldn't be notified of these minor changes, but I'm thinking of a suggestion made before regarding those changes: have a checkbox to mark questions which have significant changes and both notify and re-top them in the list of recent questions/answers if the checkbox is marked. \$\endgroup\$
    – stevenvh
    Aug 11, 2011 at 5:43
  • \$\begingroup\$ @steven - All edits are already bumped in the list of active questions. Do you want them bumped in the list of newest questions? \$\endgroup\$ Aug 11, 2011 at 13:14
  • \$\begingroup\$ Again, no. In this question Olin complained about older questions popping up again, and I thought someone suggested there (can't find the comment now) to add a checkbox to indicate whether it was a major update worth of bumping in the active questions, and I thought the same criterion could be used to notify OP. \$\endgroup\$
    – stevenvh
    Aug 11, 2011 at 13:26
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    \$\begingroup\$ @steven this is what comments are for; passive notifications is not the way. It also means more coming from an actual person. \$\endgroup\$ Aug 12, 2011 at 2:49

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