Should my edit which was rejected be applied again if I can explain my reasons on Meta?

Question

I edited a question with the following intension:

• remove the noise at the beginning which is not related to the actual question at all:

  Many questions have been asked about how to find my Pi on my network.

  This is a statement that says nothing. Many questions have also been asked about running Python. So what?

  In addition this statement has provoked an answer that is about identifying Pis which is not what the OP wants, as he stated in the comments to that answer:

  Perhaps my initial description was not clear enough. I'm not particularly looking for a way of identifying the Pi's. I already have that covered. What I'm looking for is to run one or more bash commands by altering the /boot/cmdline.txt file. This all without the need of logging in via ssh - even once.

• rephrase to make the point clear

  Others - including myself - have time consuming issues while trying to deploy a batch of fresh Pi's.

  So what he's really doing is deploying a set of RPis. Therefore I simplified to

  I'm trying to deploy a batch of fresh Pis, [...]

• make the background of the question understandable:

  Some people have tried to identify Pis. Why? Because when you flash an image, all Pis are the same. But you don't want them to. IP conflicts are bad etc.

  How does that relate to OP's problem? Making a Pi uniquely identifyable is very similar to what the OP wants: deploying a batch of Pis.

  Next we have 4 statements: a) when you deploy a batch of Pis and b) your question title is

  Use /boot/cmdline.txt for creating first-boot script

  and c) your task is similar to making Pis identifiable and d) you're saying that

  While the creation of custom images could be a solution for these issues

  then each of these custom images is individual (or "unique").

  Therefore I wrote the sentence like this:

  The creation of custom images for each individual Pi could be a solution for these issues

• highlight the differences:

  OP gave the statement

  With (only) the /boot directory open for access on regular machines (Win/OSX)

  which clearly indicates that he does not want individual images but the same image for all Pis.

  Therefor I highlighted the difference here:

  I'm wondering if there are easier solutions that involve a common image for all Pis

• emphasize the only option left:

  IMHO the original question sees 3 possible solutions:

  a) boot the Pi and modify it then. Obvious, but involves lot of effort: insert SD, boot, open terminal, execute command, ... So that's not what OP wants.

  b) Modify the IMG file before flashing ("custom images"). Also involves a lot of effort: boot a Linux machine, mount the image, perhaps even resize partition, modify file, unmount, ...

  c) Modify cmdline.txt: same IMG for each Pi of the batch, write to SD card, then modify the file, since it is easily editable.

  With all the knowledge before, OP does not want all Pis to be the same, so I edited this to be an "individual" text:

  [...] to pipe an individual text to a bash script [...]

Conclusion: I spent some effort understanding what OP wants, reading the title, the question, the answers and the comments. I noticed that I didn't get the correct intention reading the question the first time, so IMHO I edited in the sense of the OP.

I agree that this edit cannot be understood from the review queue. I know what the review queue looks like, because I have 10k+ on Stack Overflow. Without opening the question and getting all the context, it's very hard to understand why I made that edit and it may look like vandalism.

As you can see from the long text above, it would never have fit into the comment I could give as the reason for the review. Maybe there's a better short reason than mine.

Another thing which could have contributed: the edit was rejected by moderator Ghanima. Short time before I edited the question, Ghanima first mentioned OP's question and later closed my question as duplicate. Of course that is the reason why I found the question I edited.

To Ghanima, it may have looked like I'm trying to edit another person's question to get an answer to my question, which really is an exact duplicate considering all the above. And no, I didn't do that to help myself, I did it for the sake of OP to get better answers (and has not accepted one yet).

Answer 1

I truly appreciate your effort to edit my question. Your points all make sense and - if I had the power to accept your edit - I'd definitely done so.

However I'd like to comment on the reason my post was constructed the way it was:

Many questions have been asked about how to find my Pi on my network.

My opening sentence was there to describe the most common reason why others would look for the same answer as I was. While their needs would be narrower than mine, the solution would be the same.

After all, SE encourages

• To prove previous efforts in finding a solution by yourself
• To explain why your question is different to avoid being marked as duplicated

While the creation of custom images could be a solution for these issues, I'm wondering if there are other solutions.

This was an attempt to avoid getting the obvious answer, completely neglecting the subject line.

Perhaps my initial description was not clear enough. I'm not particularly looking for a way of identifying the Pi's. I already have that covered. What I'm looking for is to run one or more bash commands by altering the /boot/cmdline.txt file. This all without the need of logging in via ssh - even once. That was my being-nice version of "Please read my question again"

My humble conclusion:

• My initial question could have been more clear. An important thing I definitely need to work on for future questions.
• Considering your points above AND the lack of acceptable answers, your edit should have been accepted.
• Ghanima was right to decline your edit in a batch-perspective. Nobody is to be blamed for that.
• No answers have been accepted because frankly there is no way to achieve what I want in the way I want it.

The OP should have the right to accept edits like these. It's exactly this individual care that makes these communities as great as they are. Having people like @Thomas-Weller spending considerable amounts of time to investigate, analyze, edit and meta a thread shouldn't result in a simple decline-edit mouse click. Events like this can be quite a downer. Downers are the single biggest reason people leave communities.

Answer 2

First, a clarification:

The OP should have the right to accept edits like these.

The OP does have the right to accept edits like these; you're notified when an edit is suggested. However, since suggested edits aren't only reviewable by the OP, quite often by the time you're aware they've passed through the process which qualifies the edit as rejected or accepted.

This happens to me all the time on busier sites on the exchange, where dis- or ap- proving an edit may take place fairly quickly. However, in this case what I think occurs is you get a notice that your post was edited, and it may be that if that edit has already been rejected you don't get any notice at all.

Suggested edits are in a review queue and anyone with 500 rep can deal with them -- I believe it takes two people to concur this way, or possibly one person with more than 2000 (or 20000?), or of course one moderator.

Personally, I'm trepadatious about using the "mod hammer" in the close queue because this otherwise requires 5 community votes and we have a limited number of people with the reputation required to do so, so I like to leave it up to them keeping in mind it can easily take days to happen.

With regard to the edit queue, though, I have no such qualms because generally speaking edits aren't contentious -- and looking at the mod accounting the three of use have between 500-1000 edit reviews each (Ghanima's numbers specifically, I hope he does not mind me quoting them, are "approved 1023 edit suggestions and rejected 97 edit suggestions and improved 52 edit suggestions"). This is also one of the more boring tasks but one of the ones that it is important to deal with quickly, lest people who make an effort at cleaning up stuff (there's always some left to do) become discouraged because it takes days for trivial corrections to spelling and grammar to get approved.

This is the first time I can remember one warranting a meta post, so it's pretty unusual.

Looking at the original though, it appears as innocuous as most -- there's nothing there that would give me pause one way or another. I'd be inclined to do as Ghanima did mostly because of the removal of the 1st sentence, and the addition of "I'm wondering if there are easier solutions that involve a common image for all Pis", both of which are substantive changes that deviate from the intent expressed in the question.

That the OP is copacetic with Thomas is great, but in general when reviewing edits as someone who isn't the author, it doesn't really make sense to concur with something this far out, particularly if there is no reason apparent -- perhaps if it reflected material in comments which qualify or change the question it would be different.

Also an important part of the picture:

This is not something in which the feelings of the OP are the only consideration.

Occasionally I roll back an edit by a question's author if it involves substantive changes to a question which other members of the community have already taken time to provide an answer to, and these changes would render those answers out-of-context. This is disrespectful toward others, whether you are conscious of it or not. If you suddenly decide you didn't mean what you've said to that degree, you should write another question.

In this case, if I were reviewing it and took the time to look at the answers, that substantive change in removing the first sentence, which is explicitly dealt with in several of them, would leave me even more inclined to reject (or "improve and correct") the edit. Since in fact the rest of the edit only adds up to handful of words and the question is more than a year old (and unlikely to go anywhere further), in the name of expediency I'd be most likely to go with rejection. There is a value in rejecting an edit as it provides an opportunity to explain to someone that edits should not be used to make substantive changes, particularly if this decontextualizes the answers.

Finally I'd note that the OP has stated here:

No answers have been accepted because frankly there is no way to achieve what I want in the way I want it.

Of course neither Thomas or Ghanima knew this (although I think it could be inferred), but it does now beg the question what the point is for anyone to waste further time with it for any reason. The primary value of a question like this is to leave an indication for others what potential answers have been given (some of which, in this case, help to explain why there likely is no acceptable answer in a "problem solved!" sense) so that if they are thinking along the same lines, they can decide whether to change tack. While parts of it may be a minor improvement, I honestly don't see much in the suggested edit which makes much different sans the substantive changes, which deserve to be rejected.

Answer 3

I appreciate the effort you put in this site to improve its content, to ask new questions, and provide answers. I also recognize that the OP of the edited question approves the edit. However it is not up to you (Thomas Weller) or me to second guess on the original author's (EDP) intent. Which is exactly why the edit was rejected based on

This edit deviates from the original intent of the post. Even edits that must make drastic changes should strive to preserve the goals of the post's owner.

In my point of view the edit was changing the tone of the post despite the good intents of the editor as outlined here in this meta post and the acceptance of the original author (provided here in hindsight). It is however noteworthy that handling of the review queues is done by such a small number of users these days and it is further never clear whether the OP of a year old question checks back in regularly. It is thus the responsibility of the users that check the queues to handle edits based on the facts they have at that time.

In the line of events (posting a new question, closing it as a duplicate, editing the old question) it did indeed look like you were trying to rephrase the old question to make it more like your own. As you point out that was not your idea but it is nonetheless how it appeared to me.

Now that it is established that the OP can subscribe to the (or some of the) edit(s) the best course of action would be that the OP edits the question in the spirit presented here - unless of course that edit would invalidate the answers the question has already accumulated.