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The gold standard for editing applies:

##Will your edit make it better?

The problem here is you and I seem to have different ideas of what is better. In my worldview, we're here to help. We don't have to provide double-blind studies for every answer and, again, in my view we don't need to provide academic-level bibliographies and citations.

Don't get me wrong, research, citation and evidence are all great but I'd favour a helpful post, comment or wiki over a well-cited or original unhelpful one. The reason your edits have been rejected is they made something less helpful in order to make them original.

• An official description like "Wireshark is a network protocol analyzer for Unix and Windows", should not be blindly obfuscated to make it original. If you can make them better, that's fine.

• Fair use gives protections and exemption from copyright. Small segments for descriptive or educational purposes are almost always going to pass a fair use test. This is regardless of license on the original content.

• If you see uncited quotes, fix them up. It does make them more helpful. Wang a link at the bottom, pack the quote in a blockquote (with >). Be conscious of the original content's license but most of these things are tiny extracts from large bodies of text and all for a mildly educational purpose. Fair use makes the world go round.

###Just a quick note on copyrights...

Anything you contribute to the site needs to either be original or yours within fair use (eg fair use or public domain). You need to be in the position where you can allocate Stack Exchange Inc a complete license to the work.

That means you cannot rely on importing external CC-BY-SA or GPL-style work if you are not the copyright holder as you're not in the position to give SE Inc the license they demand.

The gold standard for editing applies:

Will your edit make it better?

The problem here is you and I seem to have different ideas of what is better. In my worldview, we're here to help. We don't have to provide double-blind studies for every answer and, again, in my view we don't need to provide academic-level bibliographies and citations.

Don't get me wrong, research, citation and evidence are all great but I'd favour a helpful post, comment or wiki over a well-cited or original unhelpful one. The reason your edits have been rejected is they made something less helpful in order to make them original.

• An official description like "Wireshark is a network protocol analyzer for Unix and Windows", should not be blindly obfuscated to make it original. If you can make them better, that's fine.

• Fair use gives protections and exemption from copyright. Small segments for descriptive or educational purposes are almost always going to pass a fair use test. This is regardless of license on the original content.

• If you see uncited quotes, fix them up. It does make them more helpful. Wang a link at the bottom, pack the quote in a blockquote (with >). Be conscious of the original content's license but most of these things are tiny extracts from large bodies of text and all for a mildly educational purpose. Fair use makes the world go round.

Just a quick note on copyrights...

Anything you contribute to the site needs to either be original or yours within fair use (eg fair use or public domain). You need to be in the position where you can allocate Stack Exchange Inc a complete license to the work.

That means you cannot rely on importing external CC-BY-SA or GPL-style work if you are not the copyright holder as you're not in the position to give SE Inc the license they demand.

The gold standard for editing applies:

##Will your edit make it better?

The problem here is you and I seem to have different ideas of what is better. In my worldview, we're here to help. We don't have to provide double-blind studies for every answer and, again, in my view we don't need to provide academic-level bibliographies and citations.

Don't get me wrong, research, citation and evidence is great but the reason your edits have been rejected is they made something worse in order to make them original. As the edit in question highlights

• An official description, like that of Wireshark, "Wireshark is a network protocol analyzer for Unix and Windows", should not be obfuscated for the sake of using different words. There's no copyright issue, we're so far within the realms of "fair use" it's silly.

• Longer official, or Wikipedia-copied blocks should be considered fine too, just cite them appropriately. Wang a link at the bottom, put the block in > quotes. Be conscious of the original content's license but most of these things are tiny extracts from large bodies of text. Fair use makes the world go round.

• If you suspect something of being copied, Google makes checking and correctly attributing the above very simple.

The gold standard for editing applies:

##Will your edit make it better?

The problem here is you and I seem to have different ideas of what is better. In my worldview, we're here to help. We don't have to provide double-blind studies for every answer and, again, in my view we don't need to provide academic-level bibliographies and citations.

Don't get me wrong, research, citation and evidence are all great but I'd favour a helpful post, comment or wiki over a well-cited or original unhelpful one. The reason your edits have been rejected is they made something less helpful in order to make them original.

• An official description like "Wireshark is a network protocol analyzer for Unix and Windows", should not be blindly obfuscated to make it original. If you can make them better, that's fine.

• Fair use gives protections and exemption from copyright. Small segments for descriptive or educational purposes are almost always going to pass a fair use test. This is regardless of license on the original content.

• If you see uncited quotes, fix them up. It does make them more helpful. Wang a link at the bottom, pack the quote in a blockquote (with >). Be conscious of the original content's license but most of these things are tiny extracts from large bodies of text and all for a mildly educational purpose. Fair use makes the world go round.

###Just a quick note on copyrights...

Anything you contribute to the site needs to either be original or yours within fair use (eg fair use or public domain). You need to be in the position where you can allocate Stack Exchange Inc a complete license to the work.

That means you cannot rely on importing external CC-BY-SA or GPL-style work if you are not the copyright holder as you're not in the position to give SE Inc the license they demand.

As with all things, I don't think anybody should be editing something for the sake of editing it. There are some things in your approach that are cross this:

• An official description, like that of Wireshark, "Wireshark is a network protocol analyzer for Unix and Windows", should not be obfuscated for the sake of using different words. There's no copyright issue, we're so far within the realms of "fair use" it's silly.

• Longer official, or Wikipedia-copied blocks should be considered fine too, just cite them appropriately. Wang a link at the bottom, put the block in > quotes. Be conscious of the original content's license but most of these things are tiny extracts from large bodies of text. Fair use makes the world go round.

• If you suspect something of being copied, Google makes checking and correctly attributing the above very simple.

###In short, you should only be editing something if it makes it better!

And just because it's original, doesn't mean it's better.

The gold standard for editing applies:

##Will your edit make it better?

The problem here is you and I seem to have different ideas of what is better. In my worldview, we're here to help. We don't have to provide double-blind studies for every answer and, again, in my view we don't need to provide academic-level bibliographies and citations.

Don't get me wrong, research, citation and evidence is great but the reason your edits have been rejected is they made something worse in order to make them original. As the edit in question highlights

• An official description, like that of Wireshark, "Wireshark is a network protocol analyzer for Unix and Windows", should not be obfuscated for the sake of using different words. There's no copyright issue, we're so far within the realms of "fair use" it's silly.

• Longer official, or Wikipedia-copied blocks should be considered fine too, just cite them appropriately. Wang a link at the bottom, put the block in > quotes. Be conscious of the original content's license but most of these things are tiny extracts from large bodies of text. Fair use makes the world go round.

• If you suspect something of being copied, Google makes checking and correctly attributing the above very simple.