What should be done about content with poor spelling, grammar or formatting?

Question

We receive a lot of questions from many different types of users. Fairly frequently, we get questions with poor spelling, grammar or formatting.

We've been editing all questions for the user which can become time consuming.

When should these questions be closed as "Low quality" vs. edited by the community?

Alex Angas · Accepted Answer · 2011-05-09 20:21:27Z

4

My thinking:

Low quality is a question that makes no sense whatsoever, is not really a question or in some other way violates community standards. These can be safely closed.
Meanwhile a dumb typoe (sic) should just be edited and moved on, as long as the intent and meaning of the question are clear and it otherwise conforms to community guidelines.

Alex AngasMod

5,96115 silver badges18 bronze badges

answered May 9, 2011 at 16:34

tekiegreg

1,6718 silver badges8 bronze badges

Yeah I think this is what I was getting at... as long as we can figure out what is being asked, then we should edit the question. Otherwise, comment asking for clarification or close.
– Kit Menke Mod
Commented May 9, 2011 at 16:43
1

I agree. We also have to remember that there are a number of users that don't have a good grasp of English. If someone regularly formats incorrectly or always writes "Hi" and their name then they need education, but spelling and grammar we can't do much about.
– Alex Angas Mod
Commented May 9, 2011 at 20:21
Multi-lingual issues are a sensitive one, I like this as an option here, maybe allowing non-English or poor English speakers to post in their native language then allowing the community to translate. Maybe building some sort of feature into Stackexchange to allow a person to translate and/or view the translation in a different language. Thoughts there?
– tekiegreg
Commented May 9, 2011 at 20:39
1

Here's the policy for Stack Overflow. As far as I know it applies to the other SE sites as well.
– Alex Angas Mod
Commented May 10, 2011 at 2:56
1

I think one of the strengths of editing is that OPs that later return to their question will see the edits and hopefully learn something from them (not even necessarily in terms of language). For example, I learned a lot from edits on Gaming.SE about getting to the point of a question (and the merits of double-checking before posting).
– Stu Pegg
Commented May 11, 2011 at 18:51

Add a comment |

1 Answer 1