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I was reviewing an edit (by an anonymous person), that they removed a statement from a post, saying that this was incorrect. I rejected the edit, and left the comment that they should downvote and leave a comment rather than wholesale removing content.

Then I thought that might be a good clarification to be made- the difference between a 'good' edit and something that should fall into one system or another. Perhaps this is already spelled out, but a cursory search didn't bring up this specific issue.

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Reviewing edits should not require you to know whether an answer is correct or not.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ Succinct and points out a facet that I hadn't thought about. \$\endgroup\$
    – Chuck Dee
    Commented Nov 14, 2013 at 15:59
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The right way* for someone to correct an answer is to leave a comment and ask for clarification from/suggest a change to the answer's author. An anonymous user can't do that, so often they will edit it directly instead. It's still not the right way to correct an answer, so if in any doubt (i.e., you would not make that correction yourself had you noticed it), reject it as "minor" or "invalid".

If you want to go the extra mile, you can write a comment to the answer's author explaining that an edit was suggested, and then leave it to them to judge whether the correction is warranted.

* "Right" being defined here as "least disruptive to the site and most likely to maintain answer quality."

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