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Today I saw multiple edits by the same user that seemed to destroy the formatting of the original question. See here and here. Other edits by this user do seem to be in good faith, see here. In both of the first two cases the edits were approved, and I rolled back the edit. Should I not have done that? What should one do if an edit is approved by the community although you're fairly certain the edit detracts from readability?

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  • $\begingroup$ If you saw the post without knowing there had been a previous edit that destroyed the readability, would you have edited the post to improve it? $\endgroup$
    – Najib Idrissi
    Sep 23, 2015 at 19:34
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    $\begingroup$ I'm fairly sure all of the linked edits were made with good intentions. The user just has a penchant for over-formatting. $\endgroup$
    – Daniel Fischer
    Sep 23, 2015 at 19:37
  • $\begingroup$ @DanielFischer That's what I figured too and why I linked the edit which I felt was at least helpful. $\endgroup$
    – jgon
    Sep 23, 2015 at 19:48
  • $\begingroup$ These are cases where a user edited posts written by someone else, and in one of those cases the original poster liked it well enough to override your rollback! These cases seem to be more about using bold and indent to attract attention, but with the rollback mechanism easily overridden (as here), I feel your efforts were reasonable. $\endgroup$
    – hardmath
    Oct 3, 2015 at 20:25

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There are two separate issues here. Informally, what to do about the post, and what to do about the user.

  • If you are convinced that the current version of a post is significantly worse than a version you are willing to create, then you should not hesitate to create this better version. (Whether it undoes another edit or not.)

  • If you see a user constantly creating content that is problematic without them being aware, you should let them know in a friendly to neutral way. Note that you can comment-notify editors of posts (even though auto-complete does not propose them).

In case the above does not have the desired effect (for example the editor rollsback or there is some discussion starting), I would flag for moderators with "other" and describe the situation and move on.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks, just curious about the policy here. $\endgroup$
    – jgon
    Sep 23, 2015 at 19:48
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    $\begingroup$ More power to the "move on" part of this answer. $\endgroup$
    – Lord_Farin
    Sep 23, 2015 at 20:14

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