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Comments on How should we make pending edit suggestions more visible?
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How should we make pending edit suggestions more visible?
Each category header includes an "Edits" link, which is a link to a list of pending suggested edits in the current category. But nothing alerts people with the ability to approve those edits that something is waiting, other than that the author of the post gets a notification. This means that sometimes suggested edits wait for a while, until someone notices either on that page or on the post itself. (If a suggested edit is pending on a post, we show that when you're viewing that post.)
It seems like the "Edits" link should light up somehow when there's something waiting, and I was getting ready to file a GitHub issue to take care of that, but then I wondered how it should interact with categories. Currently you have to visit each category and then view its pending edits. If we add some indicator and change nothing else, so the suggestions and the indicator are both for the current category, is that sufficient? Is adding the indicator enough, and then people in the course of normal browsing will see and can review? Or do we need to make pending edits from other categories more visible, since some communities have infrequently-updated categories like resources or a blog but we still want to notice suggested edits there.
What would y'all prefer to see? Possibilities that have occurred to me:
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Per-category like now, but add some visual indicator when something is pending.
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Per-category like now, visual indicator for this category, and some other indicator/link if there are suggestions waiting in other categories.
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Global, not per-category, visual indicator if anything's waiting anywhere, and the page the link takes you to is grouped by category somehow, current one first.
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Should we notify anyone besides the author? For example, if a question has a suggested edit, should we notify answerers who have the ability to review it? Should we allow people to opt in for notifications on suggested edits in a category?
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Something else?
I don't know what's possible or not, easy or hard, but I'd like to know what y'all would find most useful so we can then chew on it and figure out what works technically.
Update: I hope we can do more in the future, particularly cross-category, but we've now merged and deployed a change to add the "new activity" silver dot next to the "Edits" link in the category header when there's anything awaiting review.
Newer update: The "edits" page in a category now includes cross-links for the other categories in that community and shows the number of pending edits in each. In addition, pending edits now show on the dashboard where there are any and you have the ability to review them.
Post
I just ran into this issue. It doesn't seem to have changed from 2 years ago when this question was posted.
As a mod on the EE site, I routinely check the recent comment activity. I saw a new comment, followed it to the post, and only then noticed there was a pending edit on the post. It was on an old post, so I probably wouldn't have noticed it otherwise.
I wouldn't mind as a mod if a pending edit created a notification for me. I'd find that useful since I feel I should be watching all such activity.
However, non-mods can approve edits too. Pending edits should be more visible. They should NOT be hidden per-category. I don't always visit categories with no recent activity (no dot next to the category name).
So, here are concrete suggestions on how to make pending edits more visible:
- For mods, create a notification.
- Optional: Let users sign up to be notified of pending edits they are eligible to approve. You can sign up even without the edit ability. If you do later get the ability, then you'll automatically receive notifications of pending edits. The signup should at least be per site, perhaps per category per site.
- Highlight the "Edits" button somehow when there is a pending edit somewhere on the site that you are eligible to approve. Highlight could be a different foreground color, like bright red, a different background, or a dot next to the button like activity is shown for categories.
- A pending edit you are eligible to approve should count as "activity" in that category. That means you'll see the little dot to prompt you to visit the category. That also means you'll see the activity in the dashboard. I often use the dashboard to find what to look at where I'm not a mod.
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