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If old posts get edited, they are bumped to the top of the active question list. This is normally a useful mechanism in order to allow other users to

  • discover potentially interesting information, which was added to these posts
  • check if these edits are correct

However if too many posts are edited, it becomes hard to find interesting posts amongst all the edits.

I propose to limit the number of non-urgent edits to old posts(*) per user and day to, let's say, 4 edits. This will still allow to improve old posts while not overwhelming the active question list, even if multiple users improve old posts.

(*): old posts in the sense that they aren't organically on the active question list

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  • In a day (24 hours), the active questions list can fluctuate substantially. What if it was for every 8 or 12 hours that the 4-question-cap was reset? Maybe 8 would allow too many, but still. Commented Jun 12 at 23:10
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    @Jasper I think a daily quota is easier to keep track off, but I am open to a larger number. I'm currently aware of 3 users with ongoing edit-projects and thought that something like 12 posts won't be too disturbing in the active question list. Commented Jun 12 at 23:20
  • I would have suggested less, since 12 all at once would be a lot, but I think that we are in a good range though (4 to 12). I am interested what other's think, since this would affect everyone. Commented Jun 12 at 23:23
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    Hmm... As an emeritus frequent editor of old questions (in a very bad way to get +2 to get palindromic rep), and given that the fix typos etc. message is present site-wide, would it make sense to have an option to mark an edit as minor to not bump it? Commented Jun 12 at 23:24
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    aka. don't bump non-urgent edits to the top Commented Jun 12 at 23:25
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    @John No. One of the main security mechanism of SE is that the community sees edits. Otherwise spammers could simply edit in spam links etc. Commented Jun 12 at 23:27
  • @samcarter_is_at_topanswers.xyz Hmm... maybe curate another list that excludes those events? Commented Jun 12 at 23:47
  • but then there's the problem for nomenclature aka. what that list is called Commented Jun 12 at 23:48
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    @John The current mechanism is good as it is - it just needs users who don't make unnecessary edits and don't overdo non-urgent edits. Commented Jun 13 at 0:07
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    A (related) community guideline is "if you're going to edit a post, edit everything about the post that needs editing". There's a number of times where I've seen someone (1) adjust tags, (2) "fix typos", or (3) apply code formatting, but they only did one of those and needed to do all three. Commented Jun 13 at 2:24
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    Related: When is (and isn't) it acceptable to edit? Commented Jun 13 at 4:23
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    I tried asking for a clear number for such bumps on Travel.SE, that got me suspended for 3 months... travel.meta.stackexchange.com/q/8844/1810 Commented Jun 13 at 18:04
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    @Franck to be fair you didn't get suspended for asking about the number, you got suspended for actually doing the edits that the mods on Travel found too trivial. Here on TeX.SE I have never heard of anybody being suspended for too many edits, however it would be nice to limit the amount so the front page doesn't get flooded. Commented Jun 14 at 19:47
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    For what it's worth, I think (from the publicly available information) that the suspension on Travel.SE was too harsh, and we should definitely be more lenient here. Commented Jun 14 at 19:51
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    For anyone interested in focussing on current questions, instead of visiting the Home page, you can visit the Questions page which is automatically sorted to show the newest questions first. Commented Jun 17 at 16:17

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