Why was my edit fixing capitalization rejected?

Question

My edit for a few capitalization fixes was rejected. What was wrong with it?

Answer 1

I see this as an edge case. We typically expect edits to be substantial, but this post is very short so it’s hard to tell how much better the question reads with some punctuation and grammar.

I could see rejecting that sort of edit myself, but looking at it I’ve reversed the rejection. Also, that post is already answered, not even you upvoted it once and no one else did until I just cast a +1 and it’s 3 years old. Not sure bumping it will do much of anything so I respect the decision to not bump it and react the edit if that was the thinking.

Thanks for posting a question on why.

Answer 2

Hopefully I can provide some further context as the person who rejected the edit.

• The edit did not substantially improve the post. I understand editing to fix spelling mistakes since Stack Exchange search does not understand mistakes unlike Google and find similar words, and I have more than once been frustrated because a post only contains a misspelt version. However in this case, the edits were to capitalisation, which would not affect search.

• The edit did not fix everything with the post. This is a key factor when an edit is not substantial — if everything possible is fixed with a post with an edit, then it's more likely to be approved; alternatively, not fixing everything means a subsequent edit is required, adding yet another revision and potentially bumping the post again. (The title didn't need a question mark and was poor, ‘The issue is I try’, ‘and [it] works great’, ‘won[']t load’, et al.)

• The edit was made to a very old post which wasn't bumped as far as I could tell. I'm more inclined to approve edits to old posts when they're already on the front page and primarily make edits myself like this.

• The edit was one of a string of edits ranging from borderline to unsubstantive to inappropriate. Hopefully this has given you a chance to reflect on some other past edits. The borderline edit I rejected with an edit, have a look at the edit I performed, namely to the title and to the images. The inappropriate edit was inappropriate because it's never right to add useless content to an answer, taking another editor to remove it again adding another revision. The character limit prevents suggested edits like these which just remove a ‘hi’ taking the time of up to 3 different people on the site to look at a 2 character minor edit.

Having said all that, suggested edits are a great way to get started with contributions on the site and they definitely help the site's readability for the future. I definitely don't want to discourage you from suggesting edits in the future and I look forward to your next edits having made excellent contributions previously. Hopefully this guidance can help everyone become better editors!