The character threshold for editing questions needs redressing

Question

Why is it that any changes to a question must be a minimum of 6 characters?

I believe this to be an arbitrary rule that needs to be relooked at, as sometimes, and in the case of a question where I wanted to run the code first before researching an answer, it needed 2 "(" and 2 ")" around print statements for it to run.

However, instead, I would have either had to add a comment telling the questioner his code doesn't work and why, or if I do not have the ability to add a comment (which I do) I put a quote in the question itself explaining what I did so that it could then be changed again when my change is peer reviewed (I don't yet possess the tag to edit and then delete my quote box as the first change must be peer reviewed).

With so much talk of "broken code" not allowed, why should a person asking a question who forgot two pairs of parenthesis get their question flagged or worse, removed because of a slight oversight.

True, the person should know how to write code in the language (in this case Python) and know all print statements require them to be in parenthesis.

And yes, for me it is annoying when I have 5 apps and two dedicated servers and when I run that code it fails in all of them, even in Pythonista!

That aside, if the error was a logic and not a typo, I would have flagged it or made a comment that I could not get the code to work.

So my question is: why can't the threshold be lowered to 4 or 2 characters so someone can go in and just fix the code for the questioner?

Now, if the person has a version of Python that does not require parentheses around print statements, that should be mentioned in the question. What Python are they running, what library, if it is a code snippet that works that allows this to run when no version of Python I know allows that and fails with a syntax error?

Regardless, I am pretty sure, especially if a person fat fingers something in their code, as we all have done, there should not be a minimum number of characters if you are only making changes to the code.

Answer 1

The reason you see this 'restriction' is due to the fact that Stack Exchange employs some 'trust' requirements before you can go unilaterally editing other person's questions/answers, regardless of intent. One of those requirements is a peer-review on all edits up to a certain point, and another is the requirement that edits be 'substantial' (6+ characters) before you submit them. These help filter out users who come here just to edit things without participating in the question and answer.

Is this helpful to prevent bad/spam/nefarious edits? I don't have that data, I won't speculate, and it's beyond the scope of this question. What I can say is that this will not be changing any time soon, and we really don't have any control over it as a community.

What we can talk about in this question is that it's not documented well, but once you reach the 2000 reputation milestone of 'Edit Questions and Answers' you lose both of those restrictions. You can create edits that are as big or small as your see fit, and you can apply them immediately. This is a lot of power, and with power comes responsibility. This effectively allows you to unilaterally change a question, and as such, possibly the askers intent. That's a big responsibility. It's not to be taken lightly.

I would like to speculate, with a high degree of certainty, that one of the reasons for these restrictions is to force new users to get used to what the community expects out of edits. After all, we are all expected to get along with each other and work together towards a common goal.

At 200 reputation points a day (for the daily cap) that means you only need 10 days of rep-capping / mortar-boarding to reach that milestone. That's not a significant amount of work, and it comes with other rewards.

You may have also noticed (as I see you have a tag-wiki edit) that you get a +2 reputation boost for each and every edit that you suggest before meeting the 2000 reputation requirement that passes peer review. This has a limit, I don't recall what it is (if anyone finds it feel free to edit this answer to include it) but you can get a fair amount of rep from edits alone. Between that and answering (as I see you have a good answer already posted on this community) you will reach that limit in no time.

So, the best I can suggest to you, keep editing, keep asking, keep answering. You'll get to that 2000 reputation requirement eventually, and I would like to hope that you are able to make great improvements to our questions and help the community out. After all, we're self-driven and self-governing (for the most part, mods are there to help guide us along the right path but we make decisions as a community), so all user input is welcome. :)

Answer 2

@Ebrown gives a good answer to your main questions, but I just want to add this.

You say:

why should a person asking a question who forgot two pairs of parenthesis get their question flagged or worse, removed because of a slight oversight.

However, let's think about this for a second... Why would an OP post code here that is not working because of two forgotten pairs of parenthesis? What does that mean?

It means that the OP did not copy their exact code. Sometimes I like to ask: Do you solemnly swear that this is your code, your whole code, your exact code, and nothing but your code, so help you... code?

I see no reason why someone would copy their code here and then remove the pairs of parenthesis. I see no reason why someone would write code in their IDE without parenthesis and then ask us to review it.

The missing parenthesis indicates to me that the code hasn't been tested, and/or the OP hasn't put enough effort to make the question a good Code Review question. That is why I prefer to close as off-topic instead of editing the parenthesis in. Instead I prefer to comment and tell them that their code is not working and put the question on hold, then hope that they will come back and fix the question and make it a good Code Review question.

So don't miss those parenthesis.