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Edits must be at least 6 characters

Though I understand the reason for that and read discussions like this, it's even more annoying for questions with wrong or missing formatting. Questions with some file or commands given become completely unreadable without formatting.

If the first one reading the post could spend 10 seconds to correct the formatting, a bunch of other reader would save a minute figuring out the meaning. Unfortunally the edit usually consists of newlines and spaces only, but they don't count for the 6-char limit.

I don't want suggestors and reviewers to waste time with useless changes that are only made to avoid the limit. Can't whitespaces be couted for the limit? I believe abuse of that possibility is unlikely.

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  • They do, afaict. For example, adding four spaces for a code block line does count to the 6 character limit. I'm guessing spaces which don't have any effect on output probably don't count. Commented May 22, 2017 at 14:59
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    @muru No, it doesn't, I just re-tested it. You simply have no limit because of your editing priviledge. Commented May 22, 2017 at 15:29
  • ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­ Commented Jun 7, 2017 at 21:46
  • Like I showed above, there is an easy workaround for the "comments must be at least 15 characters" limit, which can also be used to workaround the "edits must be at least 6 characters" limit. Commented Jun 7, 2017 at 21:48
  • Also, now that you have 2,000 reputation, this limit doesn't apply to you on this site. Commented Jun 8, 2017 at 3:10
  • @JohnMiliter It would be friendly to tell me how to work around the limit as I couldn't find out myself. But as there may be other people not knowing the workaround, the limit should simply be cancelled. Indeed, it could even be considered to skip the peer review for edits that just change whitespaces. Commented Jun 19, 2017 at 8:25
  • I agree that the limit should be cancelled, and I will tell you how to workaround the limit. There is an invisible character called a soft hyphen. When proposing edits, I sometimes put them in a location that is at the beginning of a line (to avoid it from being somehow displayed at the end of a line, which would make it visible) and most importantly, I do NOT put them anywhere near code, as it will vandalize code it is in. Commented Jun 22, 2017 at 4:15
  • @muru in 2023, those four spaces still don't count towards the six character limit. Commented Apr 5, 2023 at 14:15
  • @JohnMiliter what is the soft hyphen? Commented Apr 5, 2023 at 14:16

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