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Just now I submitted an edit to an answer that only needed some extra command-line options. But I couldn't submit it as intended because it only added up to 4 characters changed, and the requirement (at least for my reputation) is 6.

In this particular instance I was able to add some dummy command-line options (that don't do anything) to get to 6 characters, but that isn't always possible and it's certainly not ideal from a readability standpoint. Furthermore, typos that would otherwise be worth correcting are often not more than 6 characters.

Removing (or at least reducing) the minimum number of changed characters for an edit would allow questions and answers to be improved without unnecessary modification and clutter, in addition to allowing smaller typos to be fixed.

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  • Does adding a tag contribute to changed character count?
    – Paul
    Commented Jul 9, 2021 at 17:00

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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There is nothing that anyone here on ServerFault can do about this*. The 6-character minimum is part of the software used across all SE sites and is unlikely to be changed.

Looking on meta.SE (where issues that affect all SE sites are raised), I see that it has been suggested to remove the limit for text inside code blocks:

Is it a good idea to either drop requirement for a limit of 6 character for edits, or drop the ability to edit for users under 2K?

But based on the answer from Shog9 (who was an employee of SO at the time), the official position was that the limit was going to stay in place.

*There are 2 things you can do about this:

  • Artificially pad your edit, similar to what you did in this case, although I'd suggest putting the extra stuff outside of the code block.
  • Get up to 2000 reputation so that you can edit posts directly, instead of them going into the Suggested Edits review queue.

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