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Another user is repeatedly making edits to some of my posts.

The edits are not outright vandalism or spam, it is more about changing the style of writing to suit a better fit with their own prejudices. I don't feel it's actually making any meaningful improvement to the content, rather it is detracting from the original meaning.

What is an appropriate action in this situation? So far I have just been rolling back any of these unwelcome edits, but I think that "solution" may result in some posts become community-wikified for the wrong reasons.

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    Wasn't that just the one post?
    – user25656
    Commented May 29, 2013 at 6:37
  • No, they followed it up with edits to other posts of mine. It was not necessarily a user with an axe to grind, they have many helpful edits in their history, but as long as I'm the author of a post I don't want the meaning drastically altered from my intentions.
    – wim
    Commented May 29, 2013 at 6:39
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    Some links to those posts would be nice to have, a small stone on the shoe can be a big problem to one, a lesser problem to another. Show us what you mean with un-welcome edits so we can judge what is being discussed here.
    – Bruno Pereira Mod
    Commented May 29, 2013 at 9:25
  • Well, the context in Oli's answer was a correct guess. I preferred to leave the user anonymous because I think public accusations are impolite, and because it is not really relevant to the crux of my question.
    – wim
    Commented May 29, 2013 at 9:31
  • I removed "sucks" from my old post, it's a valid criticism. Do you regularly search the site and cull xkcd from other member's posts, or was it something you were triggered into doing because of my post?
    – wim
    Commented May 29, 2013 at 22:48

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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  • Leave a polite comment on your post explaining why you're unhappy with the edit
  • Roll back the change from the revision screen, or manually restore the "style" back to your preference.

If they come back and edit it again, flag your own post for moderator attention (and explain what's going on) and if we agree with your argument, we'll have a chat with the editor and they'll stop editing the post.

However...

I went fishing for some context and found the question this is probably about. There are a few things I would say about what has happened:

  • Why are people editing closed questions?!
  • Citing XKCD with an image is unnecessary. A link would have sufficed if you felt you really needed to reference it.
  • There is also a copyright issue on the image. You do not have the right to grant Stack Exchange Inc a commercial, all-encompassing license to the image - which is what you do when you post.
  • Changing "jerk up" for something that is more technically correct (ie "skip") is a good edit.
  • Removing over-hyperbolic, over-emphasised colloquialisms like "really sucks" is also generally regarded as fixing formatting abuse.

There are things here that both you and the editor are doing wrong, chiefly worrying about a question that was closed three months ago. If I were the editor, I'd wonder whether what I was doing was really a good use of my time, and if I were you, I'd be questioning if it really matters at all.

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  • OK, thanks. I agree it's a waste of time, the issue for me was that after the edits and all the comment noise that followed was cleaned up by mods, my post was community-wikified for no reason (at least not any reason matching the list of reasons here)
    – wim
    Commented May 29, 2013 at 9:44
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    As with regards to "really sucks" and "jerk up" I agree with @mateo_salta and Oli that these expressions are not helpful in this context. Wim, maybe you should take the sensitivities of others users into account when posting here.
    – don.joey
    Commented May 29, 2013 at 10:43
  • @Private I have been member for 1 year and 10 months. That post was from 1 year and 7 months ago, when I was still fairly new to the site. Please see some of my recent posts and you will probably find them not so informal already.
    – wim
    Commented May 29, 2013 at 14:36
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    Point taken. I was just reacting to this particular case.
    – don.joey
    Commented May 29, 2013 at 14:42

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