

Stack Overflow now accept anonymous edits - sams99
http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2011/02/suggested-edits-and-edit-review/

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jarin
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.

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zitterbewegung
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?

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jsankey
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
Here's how Joel Spolsky of StackOverflow positions it:
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2140871>

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brianwillis
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
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
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.

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bdfh42
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".

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masklinn
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
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
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]

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

