Someone has been suggesting a lot of edits regarding simply removing "thanks in advance" from the post. Should I accept or reject? I've always accepted, but I am not sure if I did the right thing.
-
3I think editing 5-year-old questions just to remove "Thanks" is excessive. ELL is not Stack Overflow, many SO users view "thanks in advance" as being fluff, irrelevant and distracting. Personally, I much prefer politeness to "gimme the answer" questions, and don't find "thanks in advance" objectionable, as long as the question has some meat on the bones, so to speak.– Mari-Lou AJun 14, 2022 at 9:44
-
1The choice is yours, if you find the edit is so trivial that it does not improve the post, you can reject it. If you agree pleasantries are best omitted, approve the suggested edit.– Mari-Lou AJun 14, 2022 at 9:46
-
You should make that an answer @Mari-LouA, it'a quite helpful!– DialFrostJun 14, 2022 at 10:57
-
1@DialFrost You mean me? If you take a look on my edits, you'll see that I always include the line "deleted thanks - ell.stackexchange.com/help/behavior - Do not use signature, taglines, greetings, thanks, or other chitchat." You can click into the link. "If you use signatures, taglines, greetings, thanks, or other chitchat, they will be removed to reduce noise in the questions and answers." - this is one of the most important sentences in it.– user150280Jun 14, 2022 at 13:29
-
@DialFrost But note that I don't delete every post with thanks. If the question only contains one to three lines, I won't delete it, however, if the question is long, I'll delete it.– user150280Jun 14, 2022 at 13:31
-
1@DialFrost Actually, I learned to delete thanks from you! Because sometimes I see that when you edit posts, you'll delete thanks and after searching on the internet, I found the link I gave you in the earlier comments.– user150280Jun 14, 2022 at 13:36
-
Also see this answer about whether or not to accept minor edits on posts.– user150280Jun 14, 2022 at 13:38
-
@Eden0516 quick tip, you don't have to delete thanks from old posts that are >1 month old, it doesnt do much good, newer posts are fine– DialFrostJun 14, 2022 at 14:13
-
@Eden0516 please read Glorfindel's answer– DialFrostJun 15, 2022 at 0:46
-
@DialFrost It's not about the age of the post, it's to reduce noise. Like to edit typos and grammar mistakes, no matter how old is the post.– user150280Jun 15, 2022 at 0:48
-
I know, but i guess just make more improvements to the post e.g. formatting (until you reach 2k rep then you're free!) @Eden0516– DialFrostJun 15, 2022 at 0:50
-
@DialFrost There are different discussions about whether or not to approve the edit of deleting thanks. If you look at this answer, and Glorfindel's answer, you'll find that they contradict. And also have a look at the official document in my previous documents. Why do you reject my suggested edit?– user150280Jun 15, 2022 at 2:22
-
@DialFrost And this answer too. By the way, we don't have a problem with "too many suggested edits." on this site. Maybe in Stack Overflow, but not here.– user150280Jun 15, 2022 at 2:24
-
@DialFrost What's more, the system already have a solution about "too many suggested edits". A user can only have 5 pending edits, so there's no problem. Please explain why you reject my suggested edits.– user150280Jun 15, 2022 at 2:25
-
2and there's roughly 220 questions with "thanks in advance" I think you'll find a few users who will find 15 posts bumped daily on the homepage wearisome. ELL doesn't have that many new questions coming in that will push those edited posts away.– Mari-Lou AJun 15, 2022 at 10:53
1 Answer
Here is some guidance from Meta Stack Exchange (posted mainly with Stack Overflow in mind, but relevant here as well):
All you did was remove
thanks
from posts, leaving other problems in place. Such edits are too minor and clog up the queue.When making an edit suggestion, please improve the whole post, and not only remove the 'thank you'.
Generally, count on edit suggestions that only touch one small aspect to be rejected. Note that the too minor rejection reason states this unequivocally:
This edit is too minor; suggested edits should be substantive improvements addressing multiple issues in the post.
Users with editing rights (more than 2000 reputation) can edit "thanks" out without the hassle of the suggested edits queue. The point is that we don't want to burden the queue with small trivial edits and waste reviewers' time.