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I'm finding this is happening a lot - people are editing questions and answers, not with objectively necessary improvements (fixing typos etc) but subjective amendments.

e.g. I've just got one where a sentence beginning with "One of the most important differences..." has been edited to "One difference..." Accepted that the editor thinks that the difference is actually not a very important difference; surely this type of edit alters the tone of the answer to the point where it's not the answer that the answerer originally intended to make?

I'm particularly interested in this because I've had my questions edited with "helpful clarifications" to the point where they're no longer the questions I wanted to ask! It seems very easy for people to edit stuff almost beyond the point of recognition in this way, and I was wondering if there were any guidelines to how far edits of this type should be allowed to go, or if anyone else had any strong opinions on the subject?

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If it changes the tone of the answer, my opinion is no. The OP's emphasis should be respected, and if people disagree with the emphasis they can indicate that with their voting.

You have the ability to roll back or re-edit if you're not happy with the edits, and I have done precisely that on some of my questions elsewhere.

If you're referring to the question I think you are, I edited that question myself, strictly to remove text that was struck out, since the revision history provides precisely the same functionality.

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    Oh, okay! I misunderstood what was going on there - didn't notice that it was the OP who'd made the key change! Sorry, your edit was beyond reproach. My meta question can still stand though, on the basis that I've definitely seen other edits that add too much new stuff to the mix to make me feel entirely comfortable...
    – thesunneversets
    Oct 7, 2011 at 15:23

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