Minor edits (especially thinking about tag edits here) update the timestamp on a question and therefore "bump" it up the list of "recent" questions. 99% of the time this is just noise and shows people old questions they would just as soon not see. Often one sees 20 straight question all "bumped" by the same tag edit. Is it really necessary to update the timestamp in such cases?
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1There's no way to stop it (and it's there for a good reason), but there is a three-year-old feature request over on MSE.– Andrew Leach ModCommented Apr 11, 2015 at 7:25
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Related: Editing of tags bumping old posts and Is it good or bad that a spam answer, even once deleted, still brings a question to the top?, and more tangentially, Should we limit the number of edits per day on old questions?– chosterCommented Apr 11, 2015 at 7:32
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1Related: Tool for peer-reviewed no-bump mass retagging and Allow non-bumping minor edits, but review them on /review– Mari-Lou ACommented Apr 11, 2015 at 14:19
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1I narrowed down the relevant posts on meta SE to thirty-two. Enjoy!– Mari-Lou ACommented Apr 11, 2015 at 14:25
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1Forty-six posts were bumped yesterday by the same user. (I might be out on one or two counts) That is really a lot.– Mari-Lou ACommented Apr 11, 2015 at 14:30
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@Mari-LouA - And a similar number this morning. I generally just skip over the "modified" questions, if I notice that notation, and especially if by a couple of frequent offenders, but one can easily miss other stuff among all the noise.– Hot LicksCommented Apr 12, 2015 at 12:35
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2 Answers
For the record, I'm not a question bumper or mass re-tagger. However, I have to say that I do like questions being bumped up the queue every so often.The reason for this is the queue is very long and includes many questions that are of a very common garden variety. Questions that get bumped up quite often stand a higher chance of being genuinely interesting than other questions, in my opinion. Even if the edits are only minor (quite often they're in response to comments), these tend to occur on more interesting and helpful questions. I agree that mass tagging shouldn't warrant bumping up, but otherwise I welcome seeing older questions cropping up every now and then.
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1I've always assumed that that's what "modified by Community" is for -- to bump questions that perhaps merit a second look. That's a far more controlled process than what occurs with retagging (which is apt to cause "real" questions to get lost in the noise). Commented Apr 11, 2015 at 18:42
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1I agree as far as 'every so often'. It's nice to see some older questions/answers (I often miss some the first time around. However, it is very annoying when a whole batch of edits happens at once pushing new questions/answers way below the top.– MitchCommented Apr 12, 2015 at 17:43
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@Mitch There really is nothing to be done about that. It is simply how the system works, and it works this way for sound reasons there’s no room in this margin to fully explain. But the “solution” works out to the same thing: if for whatever you do not want to see new edits only new posts, merely select for
Newestquestions rather than forActiveones.– tchrist ModCommented Apr 13, 2015 at 14:15 -
@tchrist'Newest' instead of 'questions'? Well, that's the solution right there; it's already a feature! Make that an answer!– MitchCommented Apr 13, 2015 at 16:19
The best way to prevent old questions from being bumped because of tag edits would be to fix their tags when they were first asked!
There has been some recent discussions about how to encourage people to edit more. This is another reason why we need more editing.
Every day dozens of poor questions get asked which could be edited. If you want to help, then just get going! :)
answered Apr 12, 2015 at 0:00
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