5 ms·

Stack Overflow now accept anonymous edits

45 points by sams99 16y ago

jarin 16y ago
Think maybe they're feeling a little heat from Quora? I'm not saying Quora is competing with them right now, but this seems like a pretty well-timed pre-emptive strike. Glad to see it though, I use Stack Overflow way more than I use Quora.
- zitterbewegung 16y ago
  Doesn't quora target a different audience than stack overflow? Stack overflow goes for more long tail questions for people who program while quora goes for general questions?
  - jsankey 16y ago
    Stack Overflow may focus on people who program, but through Stack Exchange they are trying to diversify into Q&A for any topic. It seems inevitable there will be some overlap with Quora, and right now it looks like they're in a land-grabbing phase.
    - jdp23 16y ago
      Here's how Joel Spolsky of StackOverflow positions it: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2140871 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2140871
- codinghorror 16y ago
  well, not exactly -- you can't do ANYTHING on Quora as an anonymous user. On a Stack Exchange site, you could always ask and answer as an anon user. Now you can suggest edits, too.
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]
- AgentConundrum 16y ago
  Where is the audience in this equation? Maybe I misinterpreted part of the post, but it seems edits aren't publicly viewable. When Jeff says "suggested edits for a post are always visible on the post itself", it seems like he means that there is a visible counter showing the post has an edit in the queue, not that the edit is live. If the audience for the edit is only the handful of folks that will review it, then the entertainment value of the vandalism drops way down. Presumably your counter-argument will be Wikipedia, which does get vandalized on a regular basis. My response to that would be that Wikipedia articles are higher value targets than a post on a Q&A site. Also, anonymous Wikipedia edits are world-viewable on submit, whereas in the StackOverflow implementation they are subject to review before publication. Vandalism edits will be killed as quickly as enough people view them in the queue.
  - mhp 16y ago
    Edits aren't publicly viewable until someone reviews them and they are accepted.
    - AgentConundrum 16y ago
      Thanks for the confirmation. Intuitively, that's the only way it made sense to me, but Jeff's comment seemed a bit ambiguous to me. If you want to say that the queue is hidden from normal view, but qualified reviewers will be able to identify when a post has edits in the queue, I don't think a good first sentence of the explanation should be "Suggested edits for a post are always visible on the post itself." It's misleading.
brianwillis 16y ago
I'm so thankful for this. I can finally fix up all those irritating spelling mistakes and gramatical errors in the new questions section. It was infuriating to read poorly worded, badly spelt questions and not be able to do anything about it.
- jsankey 16y ago
  From the original post: To prevent noise and friction, your change must be more than 6 characters So, unfortunately, some of those infuriating typos will not be possible to fix. Reducing noise has benefits, but it also seems like these trivial errors are perfect for casual users to spot and fix. And it's possible that noise will actually be increased by people making spurious changes to cross the 6 character threshold.
  - chc 16y ago
    But those little changes are also where opinion comes into play a lot of the time — minor punctuation niggles, regional spelling differences, two spaces at the beginning of a sentence, etc. People really will suggest very odd, highly subjective edits. I rejected one yesterday where a new-ish user wanted to add "Thanks" at the end of somebody else's question.
flipside 16y ago
Props on figuring out a way to incentivize edits. I've been working on a similar idea but this one is pretty elegant.
bdfh42 16y ago
Slightly strange - I made an "anonymous edit" - well answered a question - mid way through last week after wandering over to Stack Overflow to take a look at what was going on there after reading the post here related to someone complaining that the site was somehow working against new users. As I was able to make a contribution without even joining I just concluded that the complaining poster had somehow got it all wrong. I even got some sort of SO karma. There was no "moderation" in place either - my response (well two of them as I went back with some detailed and related info later) went straight onto the question "page".
- masklinn 16y ago
  The complaint was, as far as I understand it, that new users can not comment on an answer, they can only add a new answer. It was also from somebody whose goal was apparently not so much to help as to get more reputation and the most highly-rated answer.
  - bdfh42 16y ago
    The complaint was also that established users could post a quick reply to a question and then go back and edit that initial (highly placed) response to add detail to gain karma. I was able to post a response, go back and edit it with more detail and then return with a related response - all without joining. Perhaps that was evidence of some initial trials that have resulted in the announcement in the headline post.
    - stan_rogers 16y ago
      The complaint wasn't that established users could do that, but that they were doing that -- getting in quickly with broad-stroke, nearly content-free answers for placement, then expanding later. It's a good game strategy, but it does put the longer, more detailed initial answers either far down the list (or, if there are enough people playing that game in a particular niche, preventing them altogether). The main complaint, though, was with the inability to comment. Why add a separate answer when there's one there already that only needs a minor caveat or qualification? Not everybody who wants to contribute where they can is interested in collecting reputation points; comments require fifty rep and edits used to require 2K. Anonymous edits provides that sort of repless contribution opportunity (the rep points would go to the original contributor). [edited for grammar, perhaps inadequately]
deleted 16y ago
[deleted]

45 points by sams99 16y ago

jarin 16y ago

Think maybe they're feeling a little heat from Quora? I'm not saying Quora is competing with them right now, but this seems like a pretty well-timed pre-emptive strike. Glad to see it though, I use Stack Overflow way more than I use Quora.

zitterbewegung 16y ago
Doesn't quora target a different audience than stack overflow? Stack overflow goes for more long tail questions for people who program while quora goes for general questions?
- jsankey 16y ago
  Stack Overflow may focus on people who program, but through Stack Exchange they are trying to diversify into Q&A for any topic. It seems inevitable there will be some overlap with Quora, and right now it looks like they're in a land-grabbing phase.
  - jdp23 16y ago
    Here's how Joel Spolsky of StackOverflow positions it: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2140871 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2140871
codinghorror 16y ago
well, not exactly -- you can't do ANYTHING on Quora as an anonymous user. On a Stack Exchange site, you could always ask and answer as an anon user. Now you can suggest edits, too.

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]

AgentConundrum 16y ago
Where is the audience in this equation? Maybe I misinterpreted part of the post, but it seems edits aren't publicly viewable. When Jeff says "suggested edits for a post are always visible on the post itself", it seems like he means that there is a visible counter showing the post has an edit in the queue, not that the edit is live. If the audience for the edit is only the handful of folks that will review it, then the entertainment value of the vandalism drops way down. Presumably your counter-argument will be Wikipedia, which does get vandalized on a regular basis. My response to that would be that Wikipedia articles are higher value targets than a post on a Q&A site. Also, anonymous Wikipedia edits are world-viewable on submit, whereas in the StackOverflow implementation they are subject to review before publication. Vandalism edits will be killed as quickly as enough people view them in the queue.
- mhp 16y ago
  Edits aren't publicly viewable until someone reviews them and they are accepted.
  - AgentConundrum 16y ago
    Thanks for the confirmation. Intuitively, that's the only way it made sense to me, but Jeff's comment seemed a bit ambiguous to me. If you want to say that the queue is hidden from normal view, but qualified reviewers will be able to identify when a post has edits in the queue, I don't think a good first sentence of the explanation should be "Suggested edits for a post are always visible on the post itself." It's misleading.

brianwillis 16y ago

I'm so thankful for this. I can finally fix up all those irritating spelling mistakes and gramatical errors in the new questions section. It was infuriating to read poorly worded, badly spelt questions and not be able to do anything about it.

jsankey 16y ago
From the original post: To prevent noise and friction, your change must be more than 6 characters So, unfortunately, some of those infuriating typos will not be possible to fix. Reducing noise has benefits, but it also seems like these trivial errors are perfect for casual users to spot and fix. And it's possible that noise will actually be increased by people making spurious changes to cross the 6 character threshold.
- chc 16y ago
  But those little changes are also where opinion comes into play a lot of the time — minor punctuation niggles, regional spelling differences, two spaces at the beginning of a sentence, etc. People really will suggest very odd, highly subjective edits. I rejected one yesterday where a new-ish user wanted to add "Thanks" at the end of somebody else's question.

flipside 16y ago

Props on figuring out a way to incentivize edits. I've been working on a similar idea but this one is pretty elegant.

bdfh42 16y ago

Slightly strange - I made an "anonymous edit" - well answered a question - mid way through last week after wandering over to Stack Overflow to take a look at what was going on there after reading the post here related to someone complaining that the site was somehow working against new users. As I was able to make a contribution without even joining I just concluded that the complaining poster had somehow got it all wrong. I even got some sort of SO karma. There was no "moderation" in place either - my response (well two of them as I went back with some detailed and related info later) went straight onto the question "page".

masklinn 16y ago
The complaint was, as far as I understand it, that new users can not comment on an answer, they can only add a new answer. It was also from somebody whose goal was apparently not so much to help as to get more reputation and the most highly-rated answer.
- bdfh42 16y ago
  The complaint was also that established users could post a quick reply to a question and then go back and edit that initial (highly placed) response to add detail to gain karma. I was able to post a response, go back and edit it with more detail and then return with a related response - all without joining. Perhaps that was evidence of some initial trials that have resulted in the announcement in the headline post.
  - stan_rogers 16y ago
    The complaint wasn't that established users could do that, but that they were doing that -- getting in quickly with broad-stroke, nearly content-free answers for placement, then expanding later. It's a good game strategy, but it does put the longer, more detailed initial answers either far down the list (or, if there are enough people playing that game in a particular niche, preventing them altogether). The main complaint, though, was with the inability to comment. Why add a separate answer when there's one there already that only needs a minor caveat or qualification? Not everybody who wants to contribute where they can is interested in collecting reputation points; comments require fifty rep and edits used to require 2K. Anonymous edits provides that sort of repless contribution opportunity (the rep points would go to the original contributor). [edited for grammar, perhaps inadequately]

deleted 16y ago

[deleted]