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This is somewhat related to this useful question: Should we edit the answer we flag as NAA?

The answer said, in part:

If you're a 2k user, knock yourself out - after all, it's just your own time you're wasting. I edit NAA posts myself, on occasion.

All well and good, I agree with that.

However, I want to draw attention to a context where care needs to be taken when editing NAAs. About a month after I had flagged a clearly and unsalvageably NAA (not-an-answer) post (a reply from the OP to another answer with output from the suggested command to say it did not work), I by chance discovered what I consider to be a problem - someone edited that NAA by clicking the edit button in the Low Quality Posts review queue, causing the review to be completed and the post to be kicked from the queue, remaining non-deleted. Since I discovered it, I was able to draw attention to it (though I could not flag it again), and the post has been deleted now, so here's a screenshot:

enter image description here

You can see what happened from the timeline and the review itself (unsure whether these are visible to those only with 10k etc, comment if needed and I will add screenshots). It was a good edit though not really necessary, but using the edit button in the review queue caused the post not to be deleted as it should have been. I should add that when this happens, the flag is automatically marked helpful, so it was only by chance that I found it. It could have happened many times before!

Please only use the edit button in the low quality posts review queue to salvage the post. If you want to fix the formatting or remove profanity or whatever from a post that is clearly NAA and can't be made into a valid answer by editing, click the link to the right of the post and make your edits there:

enter image description here

I've now started fixing formatting of NAA posts routinely just to try to stop this happening, but I can't reasonably suggest others do the same, hence making my plea in public here.

Also related: Please, don't use the edit button in the close queue to correct typos or improve the formatting, you are reviewing to close!

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    In my defense, I didn't mean the review queue edit option, but the normal editing process. The review queue edit option is annoying in that respect (or useful, depending on how edit-intensive you're). :(
    – muru
    Commented May 25, 2017 at 13:22
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    @muru I'm sorry, I didn't mean to suggest that your answer was telling people to use the button. I never thought that when I read your answer and I know that you know exactly how review works. I will try to edit my post so it doesn't seem accusatory
    – Zanna Mod
    Commented May 25, 2017 at 13:27
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    nah, it's fine - just left comment for anyone else who might misunderstand
    – muru
    Commented May 25, 2017 at 13:30
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    Thank you for posting about this issue. I thought posting about this time to time. Though not very frequent, but consistent!
    – Anwar
    Commented May 25, 2017 at 14:02
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    fwiw, the links are not visible to non-10kers, except for the link to the review (Though the latter only shows the votes, not the post itself i.sstatic.net/rPbpv.png).
    – Dan
    Commented May 29, 2017 at 12:30
  • here's a shot of the timeline (I don't want to bump my post by editing!) cc @Dan (thanks!)
    – Zanna Mod
    Commented May 29, 2017 at 14:43

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