Recently a couple of answers of mine turned CW. I didn't know, but it seems to be because I made more than 10 edits.
In most cases I don't want the CW, for the reason Olin also mentioned:
"You put a lot of time and effort into a answer, and then you suddenly don't own it anymore."
So I flag to reverse the CW, Kortuk says this is no trouble at all. But I almost don't dare to touch it anymore, because it will happen again. When will an answer with > 10 edits turn into CW again if I keep editing it?
My suggestion is, for CW to only count edits not made by the original author. If I'm the only one improving the answer it should remain mine. If 10 other users contribute in improvements I think it's fair to make it CW.
edit (here we go again! :-))
Kevin thinks I make too many edits, and that I should think before I type. Reasons for edits:
- Comments from other users. That's most of them. Others may point out parts which are not clear, which they don't agree with (so I have to think it over again), additions, errors.
- Errors I notice myself. When it's a typo I might leave it as it is (see Olin's answer), but especially when it concerns numbers or units I fix them.
- Changes to OP. This question has gone through 6 revisions by OP (and a couple by clabacchio and me). The actual question sometimes changes because OP notices from the answers that he didn't formulate it well. Now this one had a few of these changes.