Why editing an answer has Karma points?

[Jobin Kuruvilla [Adaptavist]]

I have noticed that if you edit your own answer, it gives you Karma points. Does it make sense? Not in my case where I edited the answer to fix a grammar mistake!

What is the value behind this?

[Jeremy Largman · Accepted solution]

It sounds like the general sentiment is that editing is a good thing, but it's overvalued. I've changed it to 3 karma for both retagging and editing.

[JamieA]

Thanks, that sounds much better weighted. Hopefully it won't be backdated ;-)

[JamieA]

And while you're there ;-) I agree with Jobin, a comment upvote has got to be worth 5 or 10 pts.

[Jeremy Largman]

Hmm - actually I want to call that a bug. I thought it was worth the same as an answer. I've raised a JIRA issue to figure it out:

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/ANSWERS-156

[Colin Goudie]

3 karma is a much fairer system. Thanks Jeremy. Now I don't feel so dirty if I go on an editing session :)

[Pablo Rizzi]

thanks, this sound good. 

[Sam Finegold]

After your edit is accepted, do you receive additional points if the answer is upvoted? Or if your edit is accepted, do you receive a flat 3 points?

[Dave Donnelly [Sensata]]

It must be to show that you care about the quality of your post and don't post items with ungood grammar...

</sarcasm> ;)

[Jobin Kuruvilla [Adaptavist]]

Something that I do often in forums. In answers it translates to - Good grammar, better spelling, more Karma ! Nice ;)

[Nic Brough -Adaptavist-]

Fantastic for me - I can't type, or string a coherent paragraph together. I edit a lot...

[Andrei [errno]]

+1pt would be fair. +15 is too much...

[JamieA]

I don't think it's a good idea, in fact I dropped a link to the guy in charge of a.a.c about this earlier. As soon as someone realises (as they clearly now have!) it's going to be open to abuse.

Correct answer = 25 pts

Add a space to your own answer = 15 pts

Upvote = 15 pts

Those numbers don't add up to me.

[Jobin Kuruvilla [Adaptavist]]

Totally agree. In fact a vote on the comment have no Karma but editing a comment has?

[Frank Lee]

I think the value behind giving karma points for editing your own answer is a tyle of encouragement for users to always update and provide better answers and solutions.

[Jeremy Largman]

It sounds like there's some pros and cons on both sides. To tell you the truth I hadn't thought about it too much until now - this was just a system default. Now that I think about it, I like the idea of encouraging grooming. I do a lot of it - changing titles, retagging, fixing grammar. Isn't it, overall, good to encourage tidying up?

In general I doubt many people are really gaming the system fo Karma, are they? Am I just being naive?

[Deleted user]

I don't see any point in gaming the system like that. Until I saw you can get a t-shirt :p

As my answer indicates I'm in favour encouraging some tidying up. But as Jamie points out, it is unfair to rate an edit as much as an upvote.

[Eva]

While it is nice for others to tidy up, I can really see people abusing the system by knowning how to cheat it. By giving people karma points for not answering questions/good question, you are essentially opening up an opportunity for bad guys to abuse the system. Say if someone edit his/her post so many times to get 20k karma, he/she can end up getting the power to delete someone's post or whatever evil thing he/she can do in here.

there are jsut people in this world that like to break rule..hence why we have admins!

[JamieA]

You might be being naive, or probably I'm being cynical. However, it's worth people getting to the top of the leaderboard, it's going to help get a job, and for partners to get work. So when there's a motivation, people will game the system.

[Jeremy Largman]

Yeah, I wish everyone had pure intentions, but of course I know it's not always true!

Ultimately the system should reward points fairly. The points here are compelling.

[Deleted user]

Fixing typos should be rewarded, definitely. When I search for answers I the result will depend on the key words beind spelt correctly. Unless the search engine is smarter then I imagine, that is.

If I make a mistake in my searching I can spot it and fix it. Guessing how other people misspell words is a nearly impossible task. At least not worth my time.

[Colin Goudie]

I know, I feel like it's cheating. But I guess it does give people an incentive

[Jobin Kuruvilla [Adaptavist]]

Missed this reply, thanks to the notifications issue :) It isn't cheating I should say. And I guess the points are for editors(or power users) to correct other's questions or posts.

But there won't be an easy way for the application to identify what is legitimate. I guess it rely on the users to use it wisely. The question was asked because I was a bit surprised to see my points going up when I edited my post to fix a grammar mistake.