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I ask because I just recently tried to correct a post that had a command in it - but the command was wrong. The poster had typed chwon instead of chown. Of course this means it would not work. However Ask Ubuntu would not let me make an edit smaller than 6 characters.

I feel it is important to be able to alter small, but critical errors like this (without it, the new user may not get their problem solved).

2 Answers 2

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If it's important (as your example is):

  1. Add an alternative or improve the answer. Especially relevant to command-line questions where things can be refactored to improve how they work. For example I've been going back to my answer for How can I backup my PPAs? and slowly cutting down its length. I'm sure there's an awk waiting to happen. Exciting times.

  2. Look around the post for language errors. Capitalise "i", "ubuntu", etc. Remove thanks notices. There are few posts on the site that don't need at least 6 chars changing to improve them.

  3. See if you can rephrase something without changing the meaning. Break big walls of text into nice paragraphs. Swap in synonyms.

  4. Lastly, if you've got no other option, add some fluff. Something like an HTML comment as jokerdino points out.

If it's not important (eg if it's point #3 or point #4 above) ignore it, or find something more important in the post to fix.

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  • Thanks for the suggestions. Yes, I thought about making other little changes just to get the numbers up. As long as that's acceptable, that's what I'll do it future.
    – Jazz
    Aug 15, 2012 at 8:01
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    And this just in: The uber-command of PPA-backey-uppiness +5 now fits on one line without a scrollbar. My day is complete and it's not even 10am.
    – Oli Mod
    Aug 15, 2012 at 8:18
  • I hope you appreciate how long it took me to figure out what you were talking about here :) (I blame the wine I had with dinner !)
    – Jazz
    Aug 15, 2012 at 11:02
  • Is this allowed? I am under the notion that this is discouraged...
    – nanofarad
    Aug 15, 2012 at 12:26
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Not that I recommend you or any others to do it, but if you can't seem to hit the minimum 6 character edit limit, add in a <!--> at the end of the post. It won't show up and will help you reach the 6 characters.

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  • It does get counted in the minimum edit character count. I have done it a couple of times in Super User.
    – jokerdino Mod
    Aug 15, 2012 at 8:58
  • Indeed, you're right. I was mistaken. I'm not sure how I got the impression that didn't work... Aug 15, 2012 at 9:01

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