Disclaimer: I stopped using SO a while ago because of the uber pedantic mods and the overall unfriendly atmosphere there.
> why would that be bad?
Because I don't want some bozo messing around with something I wrote. If he wants to add something he should write a comment but not change my original contribution. I see this as a personal attack.
"All contributions are licensed under Creative Commons and this site is collaboratively edited, like Wikipedia. If you see something that needs improvement, click edit and help us make it so!
[..]
If you are not comfortable with the idea of your contributions being collaboratively edited by other trusted users, this may not be the site for you"
If someone re-writes an entire sentence, I can see how you may feel it as a personal attack.
If someone is fixing spelling and grammar and other things like formatting for linking to keywords etc., I think it is very useful. I don't know why you would think that such edits are personal attack. This is the Internet, you need to relax a bit.
Yeah, franzus is certainly taking it a bit too personal. SO is interested in the preservation of knowledge for future visitors. I don't know why this isn't in your best interest, but it is certainly what SO focuses on and gets, to a good degree.
SO is mostly information-based. They are not so interested in friendly civilities, greeting each other, asking "how do you do", and so on. Neither is SO a substitute for regular conversation, where topics meander, talk goes in all directions, and new ideas spark, among so many other qualities/possibilities. It is question, answer, and building up respect. So I don't see the problem with removing the personal component. If you really wanted to, you can just contact another SO-er for thanking them.
Now that you've stopped using SO, what do you use instead, franzus? SO is a really impressive site, pedantic mods be damned. Same with Wikipedia. You'll be hard-pressed to find alternatives that try to maintain the same level of quality across as wide a berth of topics (anything, really) as SO.
And the original poster can always roll back the edit too. There's a standing order to respect the original poster's edit if it comes down to an edit war, even if it sucks.
> why would that be bad?
Because I don't want some bozo messing around with something I wrote. If he wants to add something he should write a comment but not change my original contribution. I see this as a personal attack.