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I recently proposed this suggested edit correcting a mistake in an answer to the question What powers do Elemental Mages start with?.

The answer originally stated (emphasis added):

This might not sound like much, but spells like Bolt, Blast, Zephyr and Settle Storm are only available to a single type of elementalist.

I replaced the spell Bolt, which is wrong, with the spell Healing, which is a correct possibility.

The suggested edit was unanimously rejected, and I think that might have been wrong.

As I stated in chat, to double-check the edit suggestion one needs knowledge of the setting "50 Fathoms", as the elemental assignment of spells is a 100% setting-specific rule.

Did I overlook something, and the rejection was actually correct? If yes, why was it rejected?

For people finding this question in the future: As suggested, I removed the spell Bolt instead of replacing it and added an explanatory comment. The new edit was accepted.

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I'm not one of the reviewers, but if I were given the review, I would have rejected it for precisely the reason you've listed for one of the edits you made:

  • I replaced the spell Bolt, which is wrong, with the spell Healing, which is a correct possibility.

The fact that it's a correct possibility, but not the definitively correct spell the answerer was referring to makes the edit wrong in my eyes. This type of correction is better suited as a comment, informing the answerer of their mistake and asking if they meant Healing (or some other spell) instead.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Just to make sure I understand you correctly. It's like someone wrote "3, 6 and 7 are all odd numbers" and I replaced the 6 with a 5. It could have been, that the querent meant to write another odd number. So in my example case, do you suggest to write a comment, asking which odd number the querent was referring to? \$\endgroup\$
    – Rayllum
    Apr 20, 2021 at 11:58
  • \$\begingroup\$ I would understand this justification if this was in the question, since misconceptions in questions are often important to preserve to provide good answers, but this is about an answer and the querent doesn't even mention Bolt. Could you elaborate? \$\endgroup\$
    – kviiri
    Apr 20, 2021 at 12:03
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Rayllum yes essentially \$\endgroup\$
    – illustro
    Apr 20, 2021 at 12:05
  • \$\begingroup\$ @kviiri I thought the edit was made to a question, hence querent. The same logic applies to answers as it does to questions. \$\endgroup\$
    – illustro
    Apr 20, 2021 at 12:06
  • \$\begingroup\$ @kviiri Ah, sorry, I wrongly used the word "querent", when I should have written something like "the person who wrote the answer" instead (both times). \$\endgroup\$
    – Rayllum
    Apr 20, 2021 at 12:06
  • \$\begingroup\$ I rejected the edit for exactly this reason. \$\endgroup\$
    – Thomas Markov
    Apr 20, 2021 at 12:07
  • \$\begingroup\$ @ThomasMarkov Interesting. Then IMHO this should be an official rejection reason. I don't see it correlating with "The edit does not improve the quality of the post. Changes to the content are unnecessary or make the post more confusing.". Maybe a reason like "The edit makes assumptions that first need to be validated by the original author." would be a better fit. \$\endgroup\$
    – Rayllum
    Apr 20, 2021 at 12:38
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    \$\begingroup\$ Admittedly, I haven't played Savage Worlds and don't know the setting, so I can't really judge the edit myself - but it seems like the answer author is just using Bolt as one in a list of examples: "spells like Bolt, Blast, Zephyr and Settle Storm are only available to a single type of elementalist". As such, I don't think the apparent error is fundamental to the answer, or that editing the error out changes the author's intent; it seems like it would be fine to correct that error, or even to simply edit out the erroneous example entirely (as there are already 3 other examples listed). \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast
    Apr 20, 2021 at 22:08
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    \$\begingroup\$ (That said, whether you replace the wrong example with a correct one or simply edit out the wrong example entirely, it's generally good practice to also leave a comment explaining the change so that the answer author notices their mistake (if it is a mistake), and so that they and others understand why it was changed.) \$\endgroup\$
    – V2Blast
    Apr 20, 2021 at 22:09
  • \$\begingroup\$ @V2Blast I think I got it, thanks. Honestly, stackexchange sites would benefit from HowTo flow charts. \$\endgroup\$
    – Rayllum
    Apr 20, 2021 at 23:10

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