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I'm referring to this suggestion.

Two reviewers rejected it with the following reason, while one reviewer approved it

This edit does not make the post even a little bit easier to read, easier to find, more accurate or more accessible. Changes are either completely superfluous or actively harm readability.

I want to know the thought process that goes behind when reviewing such edit suggestions? AFAIK, I just tried to remove useless text from the question without harming readability or modifying something from what the author of the question intended.

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    Unless I'm missing something, I can only imagine that the "changes are either completely superfluous..." section of the 'Reason for Rejection' would be explanation enough. The only edit made was to remove the OP's thanks at the end - there's a big difference between making a post more readable, and sterilising it of all human elements.
    – mike
    Jan 18, 2017 at 6:54

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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We've discussed what to do about removing "Thanks" and similar signatures, and the conclusion the community came to was that we would remove it if we were doing a substantial edit, but we weren't going to edit solely to take out the signature. ELL policy re. salutations and thank-you's in questions

The courtesy expressions are important to some of our learners because they are unsure of their tone and adding "Thanks" or other statements of appreciation makes them more comfortable that their post is polite and friendly. A lot of our community doesn't object to that kind of "fluff" but understands why the SE policy is to remove it, so this is the compromise.

Once you have enough reputation to edit without peer review, and if you still feel strongly about removing the "fluff", please include an explanation in your edit comment explaining why you're removing it. Here's the canned comment I use when I remove a signature as part of another edit:

Removed thanks - for more information about why, see Should 'Hi', 'thanks', taglines, and salutations be removed from posts?

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  • Makes sense. I am more active on SO, where the community is strongly against such text in code. Hence, the confusion that I had.
    – CinCout
    Jan 18, 2017 at 13:49
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    @CinCout That's why it's always good to ask instead of just sit around wondering :) There's a couple of areas where ELL is a bit different from other SE sites because of the language barrier.
    – ColleenV
    Jan 18, 2017 at 13:54
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    Exactly. And I thank you for explaining it to me. Hope this comment is not removed for using that word :P
    – CinCout
    Jan 18, 2017 at 15:53
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    I would normally agree, but in that post, there was nothing else to be improved. Well, there were the tags, but it's debatable whether an editor coming up with tags around here is much better than what the OP chose themselves. I would've approved it.
    – M.A.R.
    Jan 19, 2017 at 8:08
  • @M.A.R. If there's nothing else to be improved, then it should be left alone.
    – ColleenV
    Jan 19, 2017 at 12:36
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    Should be . . . but when an editor takes their time to remove the salutation and be consistent, I'd just approve it. I mean, there's no point in sending them to meta over this.
    – M.A.R.
    Jan 19, 2017 at 18:35
  • Good to know. I tend to remove fluff when doing other edits, as long as the tone of the rest of the question is sufficiently cordial.
    – Andrew
    Jan 19, 2017 at 18:54
  • @M.A.R But if it wasn't rejected, and CinCout didn't come to meta and ask, they would never have known about the previous discussion, so I think there was a very good reason to send them here.
    – ColleenV
    Jan 19, 2017 at 20:08

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