# Best approach for fixing a mistake when your edits are rejected?

I recently noticed that this answer is incorrect, as the value for $\theta$ is off by a factor of $360^\circ$. After pointing out the error to the OP in the comments, he said he would take another look at it, perhaps the next day. That was nearly a week ago. The answer remains erroneous. So today I decided to be a productive member of society and simply edit the post myself (since OP has 381k rep, I assumed him to be a very busy man). To my shock, my edit was rejected from the edit review queue, for reasons that led me to believe the edit reviewers were either lacking in knowledge of basic geometry or laboring under the assumption that 381k rep = mathematical infallibility. Not to be dissuaded, I tried the edit again. Again it was rejected. So my question is: how on earth am I supposed to fix a glaring mistake on MSE when the people who are reviewing my edits are, apparently, clueless?

• IMO a week is not really that long, taking into account that the answer is four year's old. So leaving it aside for one or two weeks won't hurt I suppose. Personally I agree with hardmath that we can wait for some time. Or you might leave another comment to remind Andres. – user99914 Feb 29 '16 at 7:30
• @JohnMa thanks for the tip. It wasn't my aim to criticize Andre for the length of time he's taken, but rather, to describe why I felt compelled to edit the post myself (I just hate seeing errors persist). – Hans Brende Feb 29 '16 at 7:37
• From the comments to your edit, it seems that those rejecting your edit are opposed to changing to degrees. Perhaps just correcting $\theta=\frac d{2\pi r}$ to $\theta=\frac dr$ might be acceptable. – robjohn Feb 29 '16 at 7:38
• Context 1 and 2. In my always to be humbled opinion: Trying to push a rejected edit through without (apparently) considering the feedback that you got from the first rejection is a misuse of the system. Approaching this from the perspective "the reviewers don't know basic geometry" is also not correct. Regardless, I'd also have rejected the edit as too minor - it's a three year old accepted answer. (I also think you ought to change your title substantially.) – T. Bongers Feb 29 '16 at 7:40
• @T.Bongers Even for an error? Maybe I'm just OCD, but it seems ridiculous to me to let an error stand uncorrected as "too minor", however long ago that error was committed (in my humble opinion). Regarding the title: definitely. I'm on it. – Hans Brende Feb 29 '16 at 7:43
• The first question you should ask whether you should edit the answer at all. There are probably several discussions of this on meta, I was able to find these: Editing Other's Answers Etiquette and Is it incorrect to make edits to math mistakes? – Martin Sleziak Feb 29 '16 at 8:16
• I am not sure whether your post is about general issue or about this particular instance. If it is the latter the you should use (specific-answer) tag. – Martin Sleziak Feb 29 '16 at 8:18
• @MartinSleziak Both. I was hoping that an answer for the general issue would cover this specific instance. But an answer along the lines of "In general, such and such is the case, but in your particular instance, such and such other thing is the case" would work splendidly as well. – Hans Brende Feb 29 '16 at 8:23
• @MartinSleziak (or anyone) Do you have any idea why my question was downvoted? Any tips on how I might improve my question? – Hans Brende Mar 1 '16 at 3:55
• Voting is different on meta. User might use downvotes to express disagreement. (BTW you do not lose/gain reputation based on votes on meta.) – Martin Sleziak Mar 1 '16 at 5:58

(2) Sometimes it can be reasonable to edit an Answer to fix an error that is "obvious" in a fairly narrow sense. For example, an Answer has articulated as a goal that we need to show $A$ is greater than $B$. The argument proceeds through a careful analysis with inequalities that in the end really show $A$ is greater than $B$, but in the last sentence the OP writes $A \ge B$, or $A$ is smaller than $B$, or even $B$ is greater than $A$. In such a situation (where I've made such errors myself in re-editing sentences on the fly), I would consider making the clear correction myself to achieve consistency. But...