I know the rules of editing :    Do not touch the code Really, Do not touch the code!   But how should I treat an edit for syntactic sugar ?  Like changing :   if(true)   i.DoSomething();   To :  if(true) {    i.DoSomething(); }   (Or the other way around)  Is this a valid edit? Or is the rule that asks us not to touch the code apply to this kind of formatting too ?
120526
Should edits with only minor code improvements be accepted. As an example, I'm reviewing an edit that changes all double quotes to single quotes and renames a variable in some javascript. With the exception of the variable rename (which is not entirely necessary), the edit is frivolous. Should I accept on the merits of a debatable variable name change?
40660
Some individuals may be sensitive to edits of their posts on the basis of spelling or grammar. Some editors may be concerned about what to put in as a reason/explanation for the edit. New editors, in general, are likely uncertain of what the accepted "etiquette" is, on these sites, for such corrections.
806
I have been using LaTeX for a long time now, but still all my document files look a bit messy. Now I want to get rid of this bad habit and get some order into my code.  That is why I am wondering whether there are any coding style guidelines for LaTeX. Not necessarily anything official. It could for example make recommendations on how to format your code with respect to:   Setting comments in the text/preamble Whether to highlight sections/subsections etc. by some comments How to indent environements How to organize your preamble to make it readable etc.   If nothing as such exists (yet), it would be great if you could just post how you do it if you think your code looks rather nice.
12341
If a user keeps  (thus making the answer meaningless), what should we do? Rollback the edit (what if the user just deletes the code again)? Delete the question?  More examples (same user): ,  (see also edit histories).
20070
I am sure this must have been asked quite a lot of times, but I am unable to find something about the guidelines the Community uses when approving / rejecting edits.  I just fixed a first question to be a bit more appealing, yet  was immediately rejected by the Community. I can live with that, but I was wondering what rules the Community user applies when looking at edits.  Any documents explaining that?
97311
Are there any documents out there that talk about proper formatting in apex? I have not been able to find too much on this subject (maybe my google skills are weak).  Some examples:   //comment with no space  // comment with space   if (something == something) { String foo = "keep it in one?"; }   if(something==something)       String foo="Or do it this way?";   I realize that this is probably based off of the user's preference, but I'm wondering if there is a standard to do things a certain way in apex? Would writing the syntax one way or the other affect the performance?
41649
suggested edit made one change to the question -- changing the title to ALL CAPS.  I rejected it with a custom note and was pleased to see that the review was rejected by other reviewers as well.  However, out of curiosity, I looked at the  made by the user and ran into .  It is evident that the user has removed all the import statements from the code and the review was happily approved by three reviewers.  I don't quite agree that the review should have been approved.  Of course, I can rollback and make revision to the post in order to fix it but have some questions:   Does a mechanism exist for flagging such reviews? Shouldn't reviewers be given a break for permitting such changes?
90334
I have noticed a significant number of suggested edits that attempt to fix code, or change the original meaning of someone else's post.    Is this really a good idea?    I've been on StackOverflow awhile, and among the editors who have sufficient reputation to edit without approval, I've never seen anyone modify the technical content or meaning of someone else's post.   I would consider obvious syntax and spelling errors OK to change, but I have seen many suggested edits that change the meaning of the code that was posted, or add things to the code that have nothing to do with the original question. A good example of this would be adding parameters to a SQL command, when the question was not asking about SQL injection.
42243
Obviously, this suggested edit should never have been approved. Because it's very, very minor.  Is it acceptable for me to "rollback" this edit? Does the suggested editor lose the +2 rep when I roll it back? Should I comment on one of his questions, explaining not to make too minor edits like this?  Is there anything I should do to notify the reviewers that approved  too minor suggested edit?
59535
One feature of SO that pains me every single time is having to manually indent all code four spaces, and usually copy four spaces to the clipboard so Ctrl+V acts as 'Tab'.  Maybe it's on purpose to stop walls of code, but I want to discuss it anyway because everything else seems to go so smoothly and this annoys me and slows me down every day.  ....  And I JUST found the 'code block' feature after many months (having looked through a similar question or two).  I guess then can I rephrase as, 'Please make the CODE BLOCK editor feature/button more obvious' ?
101661
Just read a couple MSO posts about editing guidelines, after seeing  getting rejected.  I had stumbled upon an old question that somehow made it onto the front page, and saw a great answer there. The question was about "understanding events and event handlers in C#", and the answer was great but there was further information in the comments.  So I started editing the post; I found that "if we create a delegate void MyDelegate(object sender, EventArgs e)" was clearer if the backtick encompassed the delegate word, so I moved it.  A commenter was asking "How is the event fired?", and the answerer replied with a comment instead of editing his answer, so I added a code snippet to give an example of how the event would be fired.  Then I noticed the code block actually included two parts that really belonged in two separate classes (the one where the event is created, and the one where the event is registered/handled), so I split the definition and the consumption of the event into two code blocks. That made it much clearer what belonged where, even though there weren't any classes involved (didn't add any).  And then I added the part why I actually wanted to edit the post in the first place: I added the shorthand notation for registering events: myObj.SomethingHappened += HandleSomethingHappened;. I left the full notation in place.  And lastly I added a line of code to show how a handler could be unregistered with -=.  As the first reviewer approved the edit, I thought to myself "hmm this last paragraph I added to introduce the -= really just restates the previous one from the original author" - shortly after that, my edit was rejected by 3 reviewers in a row.  The reason was "This edit is incorrect or an attempt to reply to or comment on the existing post." -- really? Is this how constructive edits are being welcomed? Have I introduced bad code that's just plain wrong? I mean, I use the shorthand notation all the time, I know it's correct. The -= part was just added for the sake of completeness, and the backtick would have been too minor of an edit. Reordering the code snippets and splitting them in two distinct blocks really improves the post I find, but someone who just glanced at the diff could think I removed the event handler snippet, when I merely cut it &amp; pasted it below the event registration code.  So I'm guessing the redundant paragraph killed it? Should I submit another edit, minus that paragraph? Actually I don't even care, it's a question from 2009 with almost 60K views and the answer is great enough as it is to have received 155 upvotes (plus mine), and if people don't know they don't need to new up the delegate to register the event then they can just buy ReSharper and have the tool teach them it's redundant. And if they want to unregister a handler then they can certainly find how to do that somewhere else. And maybe I should be doing something else to kill my spare time than browsing SO and upvoting good questions and answers, downvoting and flagging bad ones, and improve the few posts I can contribute to with the few things I do know. I mean, I intended to genuinely improve an excellent post, it's a bit (quite) irritating to read it's an "incorrect" edit.  I take the [Reject] edits that change an answer's explanation or code, with a supposedly "better" alternative. Even if the proposed solution is better, it should be added as a comment, or a separate answer. guideline as what caused my edit to be rejected. Point is, I was adding information to the answer, not changing or replacing anything.  So, was this edit legit? If I understand  correctly, my edit should have been rejected for changing too much of the post, not for being incorrect or an attempt to comment on the answer. And if Servy's MSO answer is still right, it means I should have posted my content as a brand new answer... to a question that's like 4 years old? , but I find it would have been better to just edit the post, given that "Edits are expected to be substantial and to leave the post better than you found it."  Sorry for the long post.
1273
I noticed that sometimes my code gets highlighted in different colors when rendered.   What is syntax highlighting? How does it work? Why isn't my code being highlighted correctly? How do I report a bug or request a new language? How do I use syntax highlighting? What languages are currently available on Stack Exchange?
98843
In my initial basic tests it is perfectly safe to do so.  However, it has struck me that attempting to manipulate this later in a function that deletes this could be a runtime error.  Is this true, and is it normally safe to delete this? or are there only certain cases wherein it is safe?
43073
I realized that, 90% of the time, whenever I edit another person's post, my editing summary looks like this:  Improved formatting, spelling mistakes, grammar mistakes, indentation, removed the bloody xcode tag.  I'm pretty sure that I've written the same thing a million times, I was thinking that maybe we could introduce a check-boxed editing questionnaire at the end, instead of the editing summary. Mockup  (Link to the ) The mockup swaps the Summary text input with a series of checkboxes, each checkbox representing a category of change, and having their own custom tooltip detailing what/which changes fall under the category. The &quot;Save Edits&quot; box would need at least one check box to be marked. The &quot;Other&quot; text box auto-marks the checkbox to its left, so the older editing flow is supported. Advantages  Convenience Being able to track individual changes easier, for instance, a user could be black-listed for spelling, but at least he gets the format right. Easier for new users to get accustomed to how the editing works, and what they are expected to do, like &quot;Can I change the grammar? Oh, there's a box about it, then I can&quot;. And users are genuinely asked if they have changed all that they can change with this system. You get accounted for what you've changed.  Suggested Categories  Grammar: The text has been moved around, punctuation was changed, or other changes that don't modify words but the way they are delivered. Spelling: Individual words were modified. Text format: Stylistic changes were made to improve readability. Things like bold, italics, links or code blocks were added or removed. Or removed a link and pasted the contents it held. Code format: Indentation, spacing or comments were modified to ensure that the code is readable. Tags: Gets automatically marked if there are differences between the tags, the user cannot manually check or uncheck this box, this is as a feedback that the tags were changed, in case he forgot. Other: None of the above cut it? Have a text box that can be clicked (checkbox gets marked when doing so) and write away.  Possible Side-Features  Auto-check boxes depending of the nature of the change, if it's mostly whitespace, then add the code format tag, if there's minor changes in a lot of words, then might be spelling. New users could be asked to fill two or more checkboxes of changes, as part of their learning. &quot;Translation&quot;. Mark a checkbox with a drop-down, and marking that the text has been translated from another language, so that users proficient in that language can verify the correctness of the translation in the review queue (or even a custom queue, like &quot;translators queue&quot;). This would be a big feature for SO. Badges for each category, .
45610
Often I see code blocks pasted into questions with no formatting, or terrible formatting.  It's sometimes quite a chore to fix these: you have to either manually space out each line, or paste the code into an IDE, format it there, and paste it back.  Could we have a button/function where you could highlight a code block, and it would turn this:  foreach (var i in stuff) { if (i==1) { Whatever(); } }   into this:  foreach (var i in stuff) {   if (i==1) {     Whatever();   } }   I realise the function would have to work differently based on the language in the code block. Perhaps  it could use the same rules as the prettify code.  Also, it wouldn't be a big deal if it gets the language wrong and breaks the code, since you can always just ctrl+z.
83510
I have been using LaTeX for a long time now, and I find myself often going to this website to solve my problems. This often includes copy pasting codes which include \newcommand, \newenvironment and \def. I think it is time I start to learn how to use them so I can solve my problems myself! It is always better if you actually know what is going on inside your code.  I am wondering if there is any turtorial or book out there that handles how to use those commands. Or is the best way to learn to just mess with a random file?   Thanks in advance!  (Also this is my first time I post here after using this website for so long, I really appreciate everyone who posts and tries to help other people here!)
52696
I'm getting pretty close to the reputation where I can start to edit others' posts, and I'm wondering what the etiquette for when (and when not) to do so. I figure that I should edit in the following circumstances:  Grammatical or spelling errors. Clarification where the meaning is not changed. For instance if the title does not describe the question very well. Where the user has made a very minor mistake that doesn't justify a full post to clarify. To add related resources or links that will help someone answer the post, or provide context  Before the commenting feature was added, I noticed that some moderators edit posts in order to insert a reply or extension to the post. I feel this isn't good etiquette (but I could be wrong) because I don't know what to do with their changes when I come to re-edit or respond. I also feel that I should be very careful not to change the meaning of any question or answer, even if that meaning is misguided. What other rules would be best practice?  Signatures and fluff are discouraged and are fair game to be removed.  See, for example, this post by  and this post by  and also see .  Also see Jeff Atwood's response in the comments to