An edit was approved for one of my answers today that seems on the chin rubbing side of pedantry to me.

• Question: How to delete .fuse_hidden* files?
• Answer: http://serverfault.com/a/478619/152073
• Reason: removing unnecessary information
• Removed Text:

Whoops, looks like you commented that your problem is resolved while I was writing that. Guess I'll expand on this answer a bit to help anyone else who happens to come by.

This edit doesn't particularly offend me (i.e. no whinge desire to roll back), but it does raise the question of whether we should be editing answers down to the facts and just the facts. The removed text in question was due to a comment left by the question owner, which prompted me to add extra additional information: I didn't want the appearance of trying to take credit for a solution that the asker provided.

Does removing the chatty text change the meaning of the answer? Definitely not. Is it removing anecdotes for the sake of doing so? Yeah. Should we be doing that? That's what this question is about.

Full Disclosure: Yes, I admit that this meta question is pedantry of a different sort. I'm the son of a historian and have been brainwashed to question things like this. The tin foil in my house was not thick enough.

Since it's a given that Help Center is going to get quoted at some point, I'll give you a head start: http://serverfault.com/help/editing

An edit was approved for one of my answers today that seems on the chin rubbing side of pedantry to me.

• Question: How to delete .fuse_hidden* files?
• Answer: https://serverfault.com/a/478619/152073
• Reason: removing unnecessary information
• Removed Text:

Whoops, looks like you commented that your problem is resolved while I was writing that. Guess I'll expand on this answer a bit to help anyone else who happens to come by.

This edit doesn't particularly offend me (i.e. no whinge desire to roll back), but it does raise the question of whether we should be editing answers down to the facts and just the facts. The removed text in question was due to a comment left by the question owner, which prompted me to add extra additional information: I didn't want the appearance of trying to take credit for a solution that the asker provided.

Does removing the chatty text change the meaning of the answer? Definitely not. Is it removing anecdotes for the sake of doing so? Yeah. Should we be doing that? That's what this question is about.

Full Disclosure: Yes, I admit that this meta question is pedantry of a different sort. I'm the son of a historian and have been brainwashed to question things like this. The tin foil in my house was not thick enough.

Since it's a given that Help Center is going to get quoted at some point, I'll give you a head start: https://serverfault.com/help/editing