Why do edits bump posts to front page

Question

I recently edited a post, https://electronics.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/227123, an noticed that one of the comments was that

Neat, but does not warrant this two year old question to be bumped to the front page again.

And I agree! While I believe my edit improves readability, it doesn't improve the question so much that it's worth people spending additional time on it.

I've also looked around on meta, and found a few more people that share the same opinion on the editing of old questions:

I sometimes reject mediocre edits for users who go on an edit spree and digs up ancient questions that will just mess up the front page without any real benefits

and

Sometimes questions only have one minor issue, such as a typo or non-capitalized "I". These are the ones I wish would not bubble up to the top of the active questions queue when edited, but nevertheless I feel should be corrected.

However, I've made a few edits on StackOverflow too, and I've never gotten the same reaction. Probably because the front page moves so fast there that it's not particularly important.

With the whole "collaborative wiki" aspect of StackExchange in mind, this incentive to reject edits due to edits bumping threads seems wrong.

Thoughts?

Answer 1

I actually applied this edit just now.

The reason given by winny is not in line with the review model used here, as seen at https://electronics.stackexchange.com/help/editing . And stack exchange actively supports the editing and bumping of old questions as a goal, so much as to offer badges to reward that behavior. Not wanting to see a question bumped is not a good reason to reject a good edit.

The response by Dmitry also makes no sense, because the edit plainly helps, but it could be based on how it looks in the review queue vs the actual edit, if they are using the markdown view. Admittedly, it doesn't look substantial there, but does in the rendered output. So benefit of the doubt unless there's evidence to the contrary.

The other reason I applied the edit was that it was the original poster's intent. It can clearly be seen with line breaks in both the edit page and in the markdown of the review queue, but the rendered output does not considered just a line break properly. You need double spaces + return at the end of a line to produce a line break, otherwise it treats it as a space. OP wanted the cleaner one value per line instead of a jumbled mess the rendered output provided.

Answer 2

Why do edits bump posts to front page?

I'm aware of two reasons why edits bump the posts to front page.

1. Edit may have brought additional information, which makes the question more answerable. Bumping to front page, increase the exposure of the question. Maybe someone would post answers given the new information.

2. The edit may be malicious: spam, content destruction, attempt to get around a ban. An additional exposure helps detect problematic edits.

StackExchange system can't tell major edits from minor, good edits from bad. Members get to do it.

Answer 3

Nick is right, and this has been addressed on the main meta a few times. Having the edits bumping the question is a good thing. However, he didn't address that part:

this incentive to reject edits due to edits bumping threads seems wrong.

I agree with your point of view here.

Rejecting your edit (which indeed makes the question a bit easier to read) simply for this reason seems strange. Unless this is a case of "edit spree", as mentioned, which would indeed clutter the front page, I think it doesn't harm to have such edits using a few slots on the front page (as long as they are still improving the posts).

The aim of the front page is not to just show a list of questions that can be asked. It is to show what is being done on the site, and this includes edits. We have to accept that minor edits show up there too (and I regularily see such minor edits - sometimes worse than your suggested edit here - being made by established users on their old posts, just to bump their answers - and, to my shame, I must admit that if you scrutinize my own history, you may notice I did similar things a couple of times - that was a long time ago, sorry).

The "Community" user itself randomly bumps posts that don't have upvoted answers, and I find it much more annoying than the bumps from edits, even minor ones.

Now, if people want to have a front page free of edits bumps and want to focus on the newly asked questions, they can easily sort questions by "newest" instead of "active".

In conclusion: I would have accepted your edit suggestion.

P/S: A previous thread talks about that: Accepting or rejecting minor edits to old questions. The consensus at that time seemed to be on par with what is being said here.

Answer 4

I edit a lot of questions. I try to focus primarily on newer questions as I encounter them. However, if I'm doing research and come across an older question that needs cleanup, I will do so. My view is that improving readability and quality overall contribute to the professionalism of the site.

I've once or twice read comments to the effect that my edit wasn't 'sufficient' to warrant bumping the question to the front. However, I stand by such edits. I am not concerned with whether edits cause 'noise' on the home page because you can easily view questions by sorted by recent activity or post date by clicking Questions at left. It's unfortunate that some edits (such as adding a datasheet link or fixing capitalization) cause the question to bump as though something major has changed; as others have said, the system relies on users to cross-check for problems.

Edits should continue to bump questions so that others can review them. When I am interested in reviewing edits and posts, I use the activity list, or the various edit queues. If I just want to see new posts, I use the newest list.

Answer 5

Not really an answer to the question but rather a relevant remark.

My decision to reject was mostly based on the fact that you made a header out of a piece of text which previously had no formatting whatsoever:

BST Bootstrap Supply Voltage

I'm not saying that formatting edits are inherently bad, but their value is rather subjective and it only takes two people who don't share your views on optimal formatting to get your edit rejected.