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I appreciate that SE guidelines say that you shouldn't put anything like 'Thanks' or 'Hi there' in your questions but where do we draw the line when it comes to edits.

There have been a number of edits today to old necro posts (some of which were closed) and because they now have a newer edit / modified time than legitimate new posts they are being pushed to the top.

Personally I think that if the question is closed and or older than 7 days we shouldn't be editing it for things like grammar or for removal of hi/thanks/bye.

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about removing "thank you's", etc and other trivial edits

I would say all recent edits have been acceptable. (My opinion is probably patently obvious since I approved maybe 5 or 6 of the edits to which you refer.)

This has been covered on meta SO:
Should 'Hi', 'thanks', taglines, and salutations be removed from posts?

We've pretty much covered this already here on meta:
A lot of my edits have been rejected by the OP. How else can I help out?

about editing resurrecting old stuff

At ~4 weeks old, there's nothing "old" here yet. So a few edits which kick up some of the older stuff seems harmless enough. (Certainly, if someone swoops in, and edits 20 posts which are months old, then that would be well on the other side of the line because those 20 popping up would eclipse our daily posting rate of new stuff.)

So as long as the new posts aren't lost under the dust kicked up by some editing, I think it's fine.

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    My point is more because of people editing old posts that are closed, there promoting them to be above newer more current posts.
    – David Rothera
    Jun 3, 2013 at 13:18
  • Sorry, I see I have mis-interpretted. I'll edit my answer.
    – Craig Constantine
    Jun 3, 2013 at 13:22
  • I'm also annoyed with old questions popping to the top of the list. I generally scan the front page and if there's a lot of old stuff I'll hit Newest Questions as that lists them chronologically. I also wish it did a better job of highlighting what's changed. I often look at an "updated" question but can't tell what's been updated.
    – Dave Noonan
    Jun 3, 2013 at 16:02
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The SO "approved" answer on hi, thanks, bye is at Should 'Hi', 'thanks', taglines, and salutations be removed from posts?

If people are doing a lot of editing to make questions 'cleaner' that's not inherently bad. However, I think it might be a good idea that if you're just removing trivial stuff from posts, to either do them on the week-end, or limit yourself to a couple a day. If, however, you're editing a question to significantly improve it, there's no harm in having that go to the top of the list. Remember, we want to show off good questions so people coming to the site stick around!

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I had this happen to me. I fully agree with this. And I have to wonder, what is so wrong about saying "thanks" in a post anyway? I think it adds a little bit of warmth to the message. Otherwise, this site can seem very cold and unwelcoming.

I think it is good etiquette to say thanks when you have a question, anyway. After all, somebody else is putting their energy into YOUR problem.

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    Yeah, I certainly understand wanting comments or "answers" that are just "thanks" but to throw in a thanks at the end of question just seems like basic civility.
    – Dave Noonan
    Jun 3, 2013 at 16:04

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