Opening remarks:
I have recently joined this community and decided to contribute by reviewing all php and regex tagged pages. I have been looking for ways to earn some points by posting answers to questions that fall into my comfort zone. So far, the only pages that I have had valuable insights to share actually turned out to be Blatantly Off-topic / Not related to Ubuntu -- and have done the right thing by flagging to close rather than posting an answer. I have enough experience in the Stack Exchange Network to know that this is a correct, valuable, and thankless task. While looking over the questions and answers, I am also leaving insightful comments, whistleblowing incorrect answers, and upvoting clear/complete/educational posts (my downvotes have no effect because of my paltry volume of "trust points"). These hours of volunteer times have consequently resulted in a total rep increase of 2
-- clearly I am not motivated by rep, but by the quality of my contributions.
Opening argument:
I have recently had a suggested edit rejected on the grounds that it was not a meaningful edit, it was incomplete, it was incorrectly formatted, or any combination of those points.
Exhibit A:
What is in my suggested edit and why:
- I corrected a misspelling in the title. Having correct spelling and grammar is important within any SE community because:
- it maintains the expectation that content quality matters 100% of the time.
- the title is a component of what search engines are crawling for.
- researchers who are using assistive devices or using translating services to convert English to their native language will have an easier time when text is correct.
- I have reformatted the error messages and separated the OP's words from the two blocks of error messages. Across ALL SE communities, it is most common to use quote-block formatting while citing content from an external source. Namely, text from documentation, error messages, tutorials, etc should be using quote block formatting. I don't always like how quote block text wrapping impacts the finished display of the text -- when this behavior negatively impacts the content, I nest code block formatting inside of the quote block for best readability.
Whether or not you agree with my choice of formatting style, the fact is: the OP's text is lost in the error messages and it should be receiving no special formatting.
Exhibit B:
So @KevinBowen unilaterally decided that my edit wasn't quite right, then rejected&edited the post (discarded my efforts) to apply the same title change then make the surprisely useless change of wrapping double quotes around the word phpmyadmin.
Can you see how the rejection of the efforts of a new volunteer, could negatively impact the likelihood of future efforts to improve the community?
Possible counter-remarks:
Useless edits in the review queue
But this is, of course, a grey area on any Stack Exchange site. You will not find me making any singular-change suggested edits -- I have a minimum threshold for what I believe deems a post to be edit-worthy. I do feel that my edit was merited and worthy of a 2-point thank you.
Closing remarks:
The volume of suggested edits in the review queue is actually one reliable metric for the health of a community, so don't think of the queue as "work that needs doing" nor aspire to maintain a "zero inbox". When you have lots of contributions to review, then you have an active community -- be thankful for that. Not every volunteer can answer the questions of the day, and they may not have questions, so if they can find items in the review queue, then they can feel valuable in this third way. When volunteers are not being active in "helpful" ways, then the community should be grooming them without telling them to become inactive. Rejecting a contribution is effectively telling the volunteer that their attempt to help is not welcome. Yes, it takes more effort to positively groom, but this is how you grow and maintain a prosperous community without the risk of alienating contributors.
I have thicker skin than most on SE sites, so this encounter will not deter me from helping further in this community, but I am posting this in the hope that this will be food-for-thought for volunteers in the review queue who are not thinking deeper about the consequences of their actions on others. The next time, the rejected user may simply feel unwelcome and never help again.
Update, I just discovered that another of my suggested edits has been incorrectly rejected. I am NOT attempting to respond to the OP; rather, I am packing the question with the "full story" by transferring commented details to the body. This is a good idea in any SE community because future researchers shouldn't need to derive any additional details from comments. By transferring comment text, this sets up the removal of two comments (What have you tried? I have tried this.).
Exhibit C: