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I'm asking about this edit, commented as 'grammar fixes':

https://security.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/80432

While there are some actual grammar fixes, like Chrome used to run in place of Chrome use to run, I feel that the meaning of my question was changed. My problem wasn't the length of the string, but its content.

Wasn't removing the adjectives Funny (from the title) and Scary (from the body) wrong?

Furthermore, was changing

Is everything all right?

to

Is there something wrong here?

necessary?

I didn't reject the edit because I don't feel confident enough, and I'm asking here since the edit has been approved

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  • 4
    Yeah, IMO that is what you could call "a useless edit". Some people just think you need to use the same tone they would use, they just hate informality. Truthfully though, other than the title there was no real change of consequence at all, so I won't even bother rolling it back. It shouldn't have been approved, but now that it was - meh?
    – AviD Mod
    Jul 7, 2016 at 8:37
  • 1
    @AviD: In the content there was still the raw URL which was changed into a clean "Google's site" link, it's more readable and I think its a good thing to change such things in newly created posts as it make them more readable (I certainly don't mean resurrecting years old post for that). However, I agree that the other changes were superfluous, most likely motivated to get the minimum changes required to be able to submit the edit.
    – WhiteWinterWolf
    Jul 7, 2016 at 19:36
  • Cf. "Tried to preserve the writer's chatty style while tidying the grammar a little."
    – TRiG
    Jul 8, 2016 at 9:30

2 Answers 2

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I voted to reject the edit, but I considered approving it since part of the edit was good (capitalization, used, fixing link) and part of it was bad (changing funny, scary, is everything alright).

To provide some more general guidelines, I would say that when asking a question it is OK to have a personal style, and that style should be preserved by editors as long as it is clear and conscice and does not get in the way of readability. That was not a problem at all with your post - it was perfectly readable.

At the same time, when your question is edited you should not just blindly rollback everything just because you disagreed with some parts. Go through every individual change, have a think about it and try to see it from the editors perspective (this especially apply if you like me are not a native or fluent english speaker). But if you still think some changes were unwarranted, you are free to change them back. If you want to you can explain your reasons for doing so in the edit summary or in a comment.

So I would say that you can go ahead and change the bad parts of the edit back if you want to.

TL;DR: The edits are not approved by infallible Gods, but nor are they approved by complete morons. See it as good advice that you do not need to blindly follow but should take into serious consideration.

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I actually think that in some instances "is there something wrong here?" is better than "is everything alright?". A correct change to the grammar would have been "is something [in this configuration incorrect or harmful to my system/wrong]?" to really improve the grammar and give a clean explanation of what they want to know.

Examples of the phrases having two distinct meanings:

  • "Is something wrong here?": Is something actively doing harm or causing problems to me or my system without my interaction
  • "Is everything alright?": Have [I/you] done something to actively cause harm or problems to [myself/yourself/system]?

Based on these examples the edit seems correct to me.

Another good way to think about this:

If nothing goes wrong, is everything alright?

If everything is alright, has something gone wrong?

The answer to both of those should be enigmatic, but think about your computer and a really good virus.

A good virus, everything will seem to be alright until it's too late. So sure everything seems alright, but something is wrong.

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  • Everything seems all right != everything is all right. If my system is compromised, everything is not all right, even if everything seems all right.
    – forest
    Dec 20, 2017 at 4:24
  • @forest thought I said as much in my post?
    – Robert Mennell
    Dec 20, 2017 at 7:49
  • What I meant was that I don't see any difference between the two phrases. It sounded like you were saying that "everything is alright" is a subjective thing based only on what is apparent.
    – forest
    Dec 20, 2017 at 8:00
  • I may not have been clear enough then
    – Robert Mennell
    Dec 20, 2017 at 8:01

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