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For the sake of argument, all edits are considered an improvement in this post. No matter how minor.

Since we consider edits an improvement, I feel free to say that they are a good thing. However, one can imagine that not all edits are equally grave. I would like to use the following example, some user notices that in some old post the word "their" is misspelled as "they're" and that there are no \$-signs around f(x).

Now an edit would certainly do that post good. I also believe that it should be done, because SE is not merely about people who have questions they want answered. SE also keeps in mind future visitors with similar problems (perhaps visitors that aren't even a part of the SE-community). It is therefore good practice to have everything looking/spelled/formatted/etc. as well as possible.

However these aren't the kind of things everyone needs to be notified of. Would it therefore be a good idea to give users (possibly only high-rep users) the option of editing a post without it being bumped to the front page?

To keep the peer review intact, users could be given the choice if they want to see all edits on the main page, or only "significant" ones.

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    $\begingroup$ It is very unlikely this would ever be implemented. See this status-declined Meta SE feature request: Is there a way to edit a question without bumping it to the front page?, and Shog9's answer to Let experienced users silently edit their posts. $\endgroup$
    – user642796
    Commented Dec 11, 2015 at 16:27
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    $\begingroup$ @ArthurFischer After reading the links it seems to me that most people see the lack of peer review as the biggest down side to not bumping edits. However I also suggested a way to preserve that in the last paragraph. $\endgroup$
    – gebruiker
    Commented Dec 11, 2015 at 16:38
  • $\begingroup$ Very similar older question: Dumb Edits keep bumping questions (Which was listed among related questions in the sidebar.) Some of other posts tagged (bumping) might be of interest in connection with this, too. $\endgroup$
    – Martin Sleziak
    Commented Dec 11, 2015 at 16:41
  • $\begingroup$ The existing "hot" tab has aspects of this. For example, IIRC, pure tag edits do not bump a question in this tab. $\endgroup$
    – quid
    Commented Dec 11, 2015 at 17:20
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    $\begingroup$ I would like to be able to edit without ending up on the front page. Quite a few times have not corrected typos because of the bump feature. $\endgroup$
    – André Nicolas
    Commented Dec 12, 2015 at 7:42

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While I agree that

these aren't the kind of things everyone needs to be notified of.

I think the better solution is not to introduce a new kind of edits, but rather move away from the strict last-activity-time order of the front page. SO made this transition years ago, replacing the active order by a more sophisticated 'interesting' order, which considers not only the activity but also the age of the question (via the number of views), the existence and score of answers, etc.

The result is that a edited question might appear on the front page, but not necessarily at the top, and not to everyone, but to people who follow that kind of questions.

SE has declined the proposal to move away from active sort, but that was a long time ago, the site has grown quite a bit since then, and there is currently a brand new site interface in the making.

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