Questions tagged [editing]
This tag is used for questions about editing on Ask Ubuntu.
217 questions
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Why do people post screenshots of their terminals?
I have noticed a lot of posts on AU with screenshots of their terminal showing commands and their output. This is seems like a very bad idea to me because:
You can't copy/paste the commands
They won'...
- 103k
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Editing tips and tricks
In the beginning there weren't that many high rep users who could edit questions. As that number grows I thought I would add some tips/tricks that I use for those of you striving to earn a badge ...
- 72.9k
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An appeal to low rep users!
Please don't just delete your answers because you got negative feedback, improve them.
This has happened to me a few times recently, I have left a comment on an answer asking the OP to improve the ...
- 18.8k
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Please don't correct commands in questions unless you are sure the mistake is not the source of the problem
This might well be a dupe. If so, y'all know what to do ;)
When editing questions, make sure you don't eliminate all clues as to what was causing the problem by fixing incorrect commands, as this ...
ZannaMod
- 71.6k
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Is it ok for my reputation to be edit-based?
In this post I asked whether I should continue barraging my peers with edits. I still have one question, though. I've made around 20% of my reputation off of edits. Is this honest, or should I cut ...
- 4,317
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How to make small but important edits?
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 ...
- 2,757
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How do I format some code specifically for the language used? Or how do I prevent it from being formatted? Which languages are supported?
If I format some code by indenting it using four spaces, the code is not formatted. How do I format some code specifically for the language used? Or how do I prevent it from being formatted? Which ...
- 40.9k
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How much markup is tolerated?
Recently we see edit suggestions that mainly format text with a lot of markup that to my opinion do not always increase but sometimes reduce the clarity of a post.
People do have a different view on ...
- 144k
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If you want to edit an unsalvageable NAA post, please don't use the edit button in the LQP review queue to do so
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 ...
ZannaMod
- 71.6k
21
votes
2
answers
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What is the consensus about hijacking the accepted answer?
I came across this question yesterday.
There is two different answer to this question, one has been accepted. Let's call accepted answer answer 1 and the other answer 2.
Recently answer 1 has been ...
- 13.5k
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Please don't flag link-only answers as Very Low Quality
Lately I notice that many link-only (or link-mainly) answers are being flagged as Very Low Quality, so I am taking to meta to ask y'all to use the Not An Answer flag for link-only answer (LOA) posts ...
ZannaMod
- 71.6k
20
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4
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Is it ludicrous to start posting an answer "please wait, I'm writing..."?
See the first revision of this answer, quoting completely:
I'm not really sure if you can do it in a terminal, but with my iMac I used tabbing instead.
(please wait, I'm writing the post...)
...
- 69k
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What do we do with (very) long answers, filled with off-topic story-telling?
Every single person has his or her own style of writing, however, every now and then you run into an (mostly) answer with issues beyond styling. The poster seems to have a completely wrong concept in ...
- 84.9k
18
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3
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Should people with more than 2000 rep write an edit summary?
I recently reached the 2000 rep milestone (yay!), and started using my powers for good (e.g. on the installation tag).
However, I noticed that it doesn't make me put in an edit summary - why is this? ...
- 33.3k
17
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2
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What should I do to avoid an edit war when someone rolls my edits back?
I typically edit before close voting / flagging / down voting because then I get to read thoroughly and see just how much effort they put in. In this case I did the same, then (mistakenly) close voted ...
- 33.3k
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What to do if an edit war starts?
Another user keeps insisting that a question about Adobe Flash player doesn't need the adobe tag. The edit war is already 6 revisions long.
Note that the very description of the adobe tag mentions ...
- 8,812
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2
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Is translating posts using Google Translate acceptable?
I've seen several questions in non-English, where a user (typically high-rep) puts it into Google Translate. Here's an example (Wayback Machine if it gets deleted). I do realize that post had other ...
- 3,692
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What should I do if someone makes a bad edit to my post?
I've been searching to see if this was already asked; sorry if it's a duplicate, couldn't find an answer.
I've been wondering what I should do if someone bad edits my post?
For example, I explain ...
- 490
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Questions including "Please help me"
I have been getting most of my reputation from editing posts because most of the questions are beyond me. I have noticed that many people, especially people with only 1 reputation, will include ...
- 299
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4
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If a question I wrote has no replies, can I edit it in order to move it up on the Top Active list?
If my question had limited views (say, 5), and no one had replied "so far", then moving it upwards is it just similar to having it posted just now.
In other words, if my question is not resolved, ...
user308164
15
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1
answer
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How to tell an editor they are doing something consistently wrong?
Occasionally someone edits a bunch of posts incorrectly in the same way. These edits seem to be made in good faith, but the editor's grammar/syntax/spelling is consistently incorrect. Perhaps this has ...
- 8,855
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Is it possible to "over edit"?
Hi!
Since it's beta I want to make sure we have high quality questions and answers. As a result I've been doing some editing, but a bunch of it things like capitalization, spelling, formatting, etc. ...
- 72.9k
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Please explain the rejected outcome for this suggested edit
I'm on a bit of an "edit rampage" on AskUbuntu.
According to https://askubuntu.com/review/suggested-edits/1183929 ...
Two users rejected my edit and cited:
The edit does not improve the ...
- 850
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3
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editing user's posts
I recently was editing a post for grammatical and formatting errors, but also noticed that the post seemed to contain lots of useless information that was completely impertinent to the user's question....
- 3,294
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3
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What is the logic behind editors losing reputation when a question is removed?
Before marking this as a duplicate of this related question, take into account that my question is about the reason why this happens, not the cause of it, which is what the answer to that question ...
- 4,306
13
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0
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Shortcut for adding quotes causes program to quit
While editing a long answer with a large block of text to quote, I held my mouse over the button for quoting, and noted that the shortcut to add quotes is Ctrl+Q.
The use of 'Q' makes sense, but it ...
- 21.7k
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4
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Messages to close voters in questions: are they OK?
It is occasional practice of some users to place message along the lines
CLOSE VOTERS: please don't close this as duplicate because it is not because A,B,C.
My question is this: Are we OK with ...
- 107k
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2
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How much editing is fine? Removing hi, thanks etc
When editing posts, is it good or bad idea to remove introductions ("Hi, and I am new to here") and endings like ("Thanks in advance"), in addition to more important changes like multiple spelling ...
- 9,071
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3
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Giving Credit for an Edit
Someone did a really nice job enhancing one of my answers and I have a simple question. Is there any way I can transfer rep as a thank you? Do I have any other options to give him credit? I,m not ...
- 9,885
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4
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What is our site policy on code/command edits?
Does this site have any sort of canonical policy regarding command/code edits?
Or, more exactly, when proposing an edit to code or a command (or just directly editing it as per 2k privileges), where ...
- 34.4k
12
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1
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I don't think people are getting the edit thing.
Here's an example of where I start to read a question, then get to the end and the person adds a bunch of edits that just end up confusing me instead of fixing the original question:
Handle Doc/Docx ...
- 72.9k
12
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1
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Can't format question properly because of character limit
I have a problem with editing this question:
Upgrade to 18.04, now sudo apt-get upgrade produces loads of insserv errors
OP didn't format the terminal output (which as you can see, is really long), ...
- 2,853
12
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2
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Why do people edit in (usually pointless) bold and italics to questions?
I'm not pointing about any users, but there are a few I know that like bolding things in questions. Is there a specific reason to do this?
Readability is the largest reason I have heard. However, I ...
- 34.4k
11
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3
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Is it acceptable for users to only gain reputation through a plethora of tiny edits?
To what extent is it acceptable for a user to only gain reputation through minor edits? This is a question somewhat in reply to: http://meta.askubuntu.com/questions/3946/is-it-acceptable-to-make-small-...
- 1,468
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Does this sound a bit condescending?
I discovered this old answer thanks to an edit suggestion which may look somewhat unnecessary. The suggestion was to remove the following phrase from the answer
and read a basic bash programming ...
- 69.8k
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1
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Should we roll up the details in this question into its title?
I was reading this question on my phone today: extreme slow wifi on ubuntu 16.04
Within the body I learned the WiFi card is a rtl8723be which I don't own. Had Realtek 8732be been in the title I ...
- 104k
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2
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Don't allow editing posts that are currently being edited
Title says it all. Please consider adding a mechanism that blocks other users from starting an edit on a post if someone's already editing it.
- 65.6k
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1
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How important is it to edit out unnecessary criticism or praise?
Occasionally, there are legitimate questions asked but these maybe embellished with a lot of personal detail more suited to a blog, such as unnecessary criticism of the software in question. By "...
user25656
11
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1
answer
128
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What to do with boatload of screen-resolution related questions?
I was browsing Ask Ubuntu for a bit and I found that there are a lot of screen-resolution related questions who are badly asked/answered or not answered at all.
A lot of the questions are very ...
- 7,586
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2
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Standards for editing
I've being an active member of AskUbuntu and Unix & Linux for some time now. As such, I often edit Q&As. But I'm lost in some aspects and details of specific editing standards.
This post and ...
- 4,306
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Keeping the Ubuntu One tag running smoothly
Hi everyone,
I'd like to flesh out how we run ubuntu-one a little bit better so we don't collide. First, some background. The Ubuntu One team at Canonical uses Ask Ubuntu as a place where they send ...
- 72.9k
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Add icon to the composing editor to format keyboard shortcuts
Background:
Many questions require the user to describe used keyboard shortcuts.
These can be formatted through <kbd></kbd>.
Suggestion:
I would like to suggest to add an icon to the ...
- 13.5k
10
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2
answers
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How many Questions can I edit in a bulk before they are reviewed?
I like to edit question and answers by new users, but I don't have edit privileges. So every time I edit a couple of posts I receive this message:
I just want to know
How many posts I can edit in a ...
- 9,106
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What should I do when a user persistently insists on poor formatting and resists formatting improvements?
Context: https://askubuntu.com/posts/971884/revisions
I edited an answer of a user who got distracted and forgot the Markdown syntax, using 1) instead of 1. for writing an ordered list. Therefore the ...
- 8,126
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Should spam posts be edited, or still just flagged?
We've had an upswing of spam recently (hopefully short-lived), and I've noticed a few users editing spam posts to remove links.
This has traditionally been considered a wrong approach on Ask Ubuntu.
...
- 119k
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3
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How much can an answer be modified before it should be its own entity?
An edit was in the review queue for this answer and it’s clear that the author of the edit is doing everyone a favour with the additional details being added:
Given how drastic the “hijack” of the ...
- 23.9k
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What is best practice for writing commands? With $ or without $? [duplicate]
I want to know what the best way to write and highlight a command is.
Many people (with a lot of reputation) write commands like this:
$ sudo apt-get update
If someone copies this command as it is, ...
- 9,106
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1
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Should I edit closed questions?
I have recently seen this question, where I see a spelling error in the title. I wanted to edit that, but I see that question was closed already. I am a bit confused to edit that title. Because ...
- 77.4k
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Code fence formatting problems to watch out for and fix
Since the start of 2019, code fences have been fully supported on Stack Exchange sites. By code fences, I mean the use of opening and closing triple backticks to format a code block. The effect of ...
ZannaMod
- 71.6k
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Is using `code` styling for non-code samples okay?
The code is for code samples, of course. Its actual description is "a piece of program instructions." If package-names or date-and-time (technical details) are program instructions, then so are ...
- 1,413