Trivial edits: “Stackoverflow” and “StackExchange”

Actually, the space is an essential part of the name. While it's "One word" they're two different colours.

Honestly? It's a simple mistake to make. It's "Super User" not Superuser (a mistake I made for years), Stack Exchange not StackExchange and Stack Overflow not Stackoverflow.

And well, if we're going to go "We shouldn't be editing these" one by one, we have a bit of a problem, simply cause we will never run out of words.

As a new user - the edit limit is designed to let you get used to what's a substantial edit. On the other hand, we trust experienced users to know when to bend the rules. That's to say - trivial edits are more of an issue if they're the only edit made, but if someone fixed Stackoverflow _{don't touch that ed} to Stack Overflow with other useful or substantial edits. I might even be cool with it helping make up the minimum for a new user with other fixes.

If someone's farming these fixes on their own, you can ping them and let them know that maybe more substantial edits can be made.

If this fails, or things get heated, flag and a mod'll probably take a look, and see if there's more that can be done on those posts, and let the editor know where there's room for improvement.

It seems you're pretty well aware of what constitutes a 'trivial' edit, and what its possible negative ramifications are: frontpages flooded with old posts and no new ones in sight.

Let's just treat this as we would on any other site: If someone makes a single trivial edit to a post of yours, you're free to rollback and explain that it was too trivial for you (even though Stack Overflow is the correct spelling) or you can just let it be. If you see someone continuously flooding the front page with trivial edits, flag one of the posts they edited/one of the editor's posts for moderator attention.

I really think there's no need to discuss this on a word-by-word basis. If anyone sees someone flooding the front-page, flag. Otherwise, please don't get into roll-back wars over trivial edits. If the original post-owner doesn't mind, don't be the third party stepping in and completing the drama-triangle.

I think that when it comes to "trivial" edits, it depends on the situation. The chief problem with trivial edits is that they fill up space on the main page of questions that could otherwise be filled with exciting new content. But there are plenty of times when this factor will not really be an issue.

For example, if you are posting a new answer to an old question, the question will get bumped to the top of the main page anyway. Making trivial edits to the question and existing answers causes no harm because it is not going to put the question in a place that it wouldn't be anyway. So if you are posting new content, I would say you should specifically look for trivial edits to make so that you can take care of them all at the time when they will cause no harm, rather than leaving them for someone else to potentially take care of at a time when they will cause harm. Indeed, as I am posting this answer I would have made a one-character edit to Tinkeringbell's answer if I had enough reputation (it's fewer than 6 characters so I can't suggest it), for this very reason.

(If you do this you should probably do the edits before posting your new answer, so that the last activity shows "answered by" instead of "modified by" and links directly to the new content.)

Similarly, if you are making significant edits to an answer, you can also add trivial edits to all the posts on that page (i.e., the question and all the other answers), since, as mentioned, it will not cause any bumping that wouldn't have happened anyway.

You can also do something slightly reversed of the above. If you see a trivial edit that you want to make, you can try to find other things to edit that are less trivial. Very often you can find other things that can use editing, either in the same post, or in one of the other posts on that page (i.e., the question or any of its answers).

Another instance where the downside of trivial edits is severely limited is when the question has a very negative score. Questions with very negative scores don't appear on the main page even when edits are made, or even when genuine new content is posted. As such, I think it is much less of an issue to make trivial edits to a question (or any of its answers) that has a sufficiently negative score that it will not appear on the main page. (e.g., this very question does not appear on the main page because it has a score of -8.)

Finally, I think there can be a distinction between making trivial edits to your own posts vs. making trivial edits to someone else's posts. When it comes to someone else's post, there is the downside mentioned above, as well as the fact that the post owner may not appreciate it and may even actively resent it. However, when it comes to your own posts, I think you should have greater freedom to make trivial edits. If there is a spelling or grammar mistake in something that has your name attached to it, I think you have the right to correct it, even if you do not add any additional useful content. Of course, if you can add something useful — as per above — that is certainly better.

There have certainly been times when I have made very minor edits to my own posts, yet have not made similar edits to other people's posts. I don't want there to be anything attributed to me with mistakes in it, so I will fix them. Other people might not care about that, and I think that is their prerogative.