[franzus]

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.

[gizzlon]

Then you're right to stay off SO:

"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"

http://stackoverflow.com/faq#editing

[solutionyogi]

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.

[shurane]

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.

[Cyranix]

Pull requests for edits, perhaps?

[manojlds]

It is actually like that. Any new comer cand edit and "submit a pull request" that people with more rep can accept.

[cruise02]

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.