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Although it requires 2 contributors (rep $\geq2000$) to reject an edit, it only needs 1 by "rejecting and editing" actually. And later, I found this problem have been came up before.

Today I found some of my edits were rejected singlehandedly by "rejecting and editing" trivially, it's not they're rejected but they're not treated seriously that makes me disappointed. Edit 1-4 were rejected by the same user.

Edit 1: I added a link to the book mentioned in question, but it was rejected and edited trivially. See Revision 4.

Edit 2: This question was not clear enough so I improved expression and retag. Same result, see Revision 3.

Edit 3: I added 2 more popular tags. Same result again, see Revision 4.

Edit 4: This question is more about complex analysis and pde rather than mathematical-physics so I retagged, same result as before. See Revision 2.

Edit 5: This question is about computing characterisctic class and not so relevant to string theory, so I added and , delete , but it was rejected and even wrongly edited. Calculate characterisctic class is apparently not a part of elementary physics and shouldn't tagged .

Edit 5 is partly my fault, since it does have strong background in , deleting it is not a good choice.

Question:

What can be done about this?

Any suggestions and opinions? Thank you for your kindly discussion.

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    $\begingroup$ I don't think this has anything to do with "trusted users". $\endgroup$
    – Asaf Karagila Mod
    Commented Mar 22, 2019 at 11:23
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    $\begingroup$ This seems like an abuse of the "Reject and Edit" button. It's an intentional feature that should only be used if the reviewer plans to replace it with a different edit. If you notice a user abusing this button to double their vote without performing a substantive edit, flag one of their posts for mod attention and explain the problem; mods can issue a manual review ban and warnings. $\endgroup$
    – gparyani
    Commented Mar 22, 2019 at 23:50
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    $\begingroup$ I am concerned that Edits 1-4 were all Reject-and-edited by the same user. $\endgroup$
    – jgon
    Commented Mar 23, 2019 at 18:41
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    $\begingroup$ That said, some of the reject-and-edits were imo reasonable, in the sense that I probably would have rejected the edit and made the same changes. (#2) in particular. I find your edit lost the meaning of the original post, whereas the actual edit was more conservative. Regardless, don't bother editing posts without context like that one, since they will be closed anyway. $\endgroup$
    – jgon
    Commented Mar 23, 2019 at 18:45
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    $\begingroup$ As for edit 3, it's possible that the frankly irrelevant changes you made to the body of the post distracted from the valuable retagging. Based on the actual edit, it's likely that the person rejecting was going to reject anyway and noticed a minor edit that they wanted to make, so they decided to reject and edit. $\endgroup$
    – jgon
    Commented Mar 23, 2019 at 18:48
  • $\begingroup$ Edit 4 may be the same as edit 3. $\endgroup$
    – jgon
    Commented Mar 23, 2019 at 18:49
  • $\begingroup$ That said, I don't understand why edit 1 was rejected at all, that seems valuable. $\endgroup$
    – jgon
    Commented Mar 23, 2019 at 18:50
  • $\begingroup$ @jgon Yes, the same user. And he tends to reject retagging edits, see undates in this post. I think #4 is much different than #3, #3 may not be necessary enough, but #4 is substantive, it's a problem from complex analysis actually. $\endgroup$
    – Andrews
    Commented Mar 23, 2019 at 23:34
  • $\begingroup$ @Andrews I agree that the retagging was beneficial (imo) in both cases, I meant that it's possible that the retagging went unnoticed because of the minor edits to the body of the post in both cases. I.e., in 3 and 4 you made minor edits to the body and you also retagged. If the retagging was missed because of the changes to the body, that might explain the rejection. Idk, my goal was to attempt provide a plausible, non-abusive explanation for the reject and edits. $\endgroup$
    – jgon
    Commented Mar 23, 2019 at 23:39
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    $\begingroup$ @jgon I will write it in comment every time when I retag, maybe it's often ignored. $\endgroup$
    – Andrews
    Commented Mar 23, 2019 at 23:42
  • $\begingroup$ For edit 1, maybe the user who rejected your edit was worried about the legality of your link (copyright issue)? $\endgroup$
    – YuiTo Cheng
    Commented Mar 24, 2019 at 4:24
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    $\begingroup$ @YuiToCheng If so, the user can doubt the legality in comment and reject, rather than reject and edit trivially to reject singlehandedly. $\endgroup$
    – Andrews
    Commented Mar 24, 2019 at 4:27
  • $\begingroup$ @Andrews So you may clarify it in the edit summary next time. $\endgroup$
    – YuiTo Cheng
    Commented Mar 24, 2019 at 4:30
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    $\begingroup$ @YuiToCheng Actually, as you can see, I explain my reason for edit every time in comment, but I find less care about it. $\endgroup$
    – Andrews
    Commented Mar 24, 2019 at 4:32
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    $\begingroup$ The same user who applied "reject and edit" in the first four edits you list just "rejected and edited" one of my edits, which had already been approved by one person. In this case, the user applied the same edits as me (fixing latex) and then added more of their own. This seems like a case for "Improve" rather than "reject and edit", which erases my contribution and participation in the community. The edit is here: math.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/1416188 $\endgroup$
    – halrankard
    Commented Jul 5, 2020 at 13:42

2 Answers 2

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The answer by Arctic Char makes some good points, but let me add two things.

Moderators can and do act on irregular or otherwise poor reviewing.

Indeed, for this type of problem it is relatively easy for us to do something. It is possible to revoke review-privileges of users (without suspending them altogether). We do this at times, for various reasons.

Thus, if there is a problem with the reviewing of a user, do not hesitate to bring it to the moderators attention. Depending on the nature of the problem, we might get involved.

Reject and edit without improving the post is bad even when the "reject" is completely clear (which might not even be the case in the particular case)

The point is "reject and edit" bumps the post, a clean "reject" does not bump the post. Thus, in saving the effort of one review task for one user one creates front-page noise for everybody.

That's not to say this is the only reason against this, one should not take procedural shortcuts lightly, but still it seems a convincing one to me.

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  • $\begingroup$ How does one go about bringing such issues to the attention of moderators? $\endgroup$
    – halrankard
    Commented Jul 5, 2020 at 13:43
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    $\begingroup$ @halrankard a good way is to flag the post on which the edit was proposed as "in need for moderator intervention" and mention it in the description of the flag. $\endgroup$
    – quid Mod
    Commented Jul 5, 2020 at 14:01
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First, I agree with the previous answer concerning this issue. From the number of up-votes it gets and the fact that those posts are still recent, you can assume that the answers reflect how the community see this issue.

However, there's not much the community can do. There is very little moderation concerning edit review tasks. As long as those users passes the audit consistently, they are free to do 20 reviews each day. Also, they (more or less) are not required to explain their review action.

Think it this way. Anyone with 2k+ reps can come to any question and single-handedly do whatever edit they want. So this is not really an issue about the review, but the issue about editing in general.

So what you can do:

  • Get to 2k+ as soon as possible. This is the most practical solution to you.

  • Submit your edit again in another time of the day, hopefully different users will review your edit.

On an aside, since you are recently trying to edit questions about physics, you should realize that the community lacks both knowledge and interest to distinguish different sub-tags in physics. For example, I have completely no idea why string theory is not a suitable tag for the fifth question you mentioned, especially when they mentioned that the question comes from string theory (and I am working in differential geometry, which is closer to string theory in math). You may consider writing more explanations in the comment section when submitting your suggested edit.

Indeed, not until recently we hardly have any moderation concerning the difference between "physics" and "mathematical-physics" tag because (i) very few cares about tagging in general, and (ii) even for those who care, they can live with that since there are more to worry about.

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  • $\begingroup$ Thanks a lot for your answer. For 5th question, it does have a strong background in string theory (as the OP mentioned AdS$_5$ space), but since the question is about computing characteristic class, and a question can have 5 tags at most, I want to add a more popular tag [mathematical-physics], so I have to delete one (maybe [string-theory] is not the best choice). Rejection needs an explaination although it's often ambiguous. $\endgroup$
    – Andrews
    Commented Mar 22, 2019 at 21:42
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    $\begingroup$ Personally I would prefer string theory instead of fibration then. In general, a subject tag (GR, QM...) is more important than an object tag (geodesics, fibration .... ) since fewer users follow object tags (e.g. fibration has only 3 followers while string theory has 15, although the string theory tag has much less questions). @Andrews $\endgroup$
    – Arctic Char
    Commented Mar 22, 2019 at 21:51
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for your advice on tags about subject and object. That's very reasonable! $\endgroup$
    – Andrews
    Commented Mar 22, 2019 at 21:55

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