Sidenote, but was anyone else bothered by the last edit to that question? It contributed absolutely nothing, it's just some guy that attached himself to the (fantastic!) answer by performing a few minor style edits.
> You really think people do it to get their name there?
I’m assuming that’s the reason because I see no other reason for that edit. The editor only made one valid change, “is” to “are”. All the other changes are just there to make the edit look bigger, but don’t actually contribute anything. Do actually look at the changes, they are ridiculous: changing “Pi” to “pi” (why not do it right and change it to “π”?), changing capitalisation of the automatically added placeholder image alt texts (why not remove them or add a meaningful alt text?), linking to Wikipedia articles that have already been linked elsewhere in the text … all in all, the edit seems not like the editor was making an effort at all, and rather like he was making every effort to look busy without having to contribute anything.
I've noticed this on questions I've asked before. Someone makes a minor edit to put their name on my question, I'll make a minor edit to take it off, and either they will add themselves back on or someone else will take their spot. I've given up at this point.
I wouldn't give much importance to it, the only problem I see is the amount of visibility this kind of contribution have. I think it should instead be only a small footnote.
It's an edit, we can't assume the editor contributed significantly to the answer. If the editor had a better answer, he should post an answer himself; if he had a minor but still significant contribution, he should post a comment complementing it. An edit is IMO the lesser of the contributions, only grammatical and spelling corrections, and a name attached to an answer as an edit means barely nothing to me.
Looking at those edits in particular, they do appear to make the post more readable. Nothing wrong with correcting some small grammar issues and adding a few links to explain the terms used.
But the editor changed the style of the answer. And what's the limit to what an editor can do? Can he re-write it completely without my approval?
If I contributed to something like SO, I would be furious if someone else changed a piece of text that's attributed to me as the author, into something that's not my style, my grammar, my way of writing.
I think the attitude that the Stack Exchange folks are trying to foster with the edits is to not have a lot of ego involved. It's not a place for ee cummings to demonstrate his personal preference of punctuation. It's more wiki-like. You need to gain a substantial amount of rep before you can edit other people's answers, which one would think filters most of the less tasteful edits. (I'd say edits on answers are actually pretty rare. Edits on questions are more common because lots of unclear questions are asked by people with poor English skills and people who aren't yet familiar with the conventions on the site.)
I won't say that everything the Stack Exchange people have done is perfect or well thought out but the editing of other people's content is certainly interesting and I think it's rare that it's used poorly or offensively.
This is a hypocritical response and not directed at you or your comment specifically, but I'm personally a bit sick of the top comments in each HN thread being (often pedantic) sidenotes.
There's nothing wrong with sidenotes, and I don't think there are more sidenotes than previously, but it seems as though the level of relevant on-topic discourse has fallen leading to off-topic comments bubbling to the top. This is disappointing as the comments used to tell me more about the article than the article itself.
On StackOverflow, edits are NOT for contributions. If you have something significant to say, say it in a comment or in your own answer. The only allowable edit is an edit that does not change the substance of the answer, that is, minor and stylistic.
This one[1][2] is the only one that I remember seeing his name, but it's a very good one. In his answer he explains branch prediction, and ended up receiving more than 5000 upvotes for it.
Heh, I just replied to this tweet from @stackexchange. I think the coolest surprise was having the current pi record holder reply to the question. That made me smile
It smells more and more like Wikipedia. :-/