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I am wondering if there is a work around to keep my edits from bumping questions. I recently saw a tex error in my answer and fixed it, I don't think that this should bump the question. Also, when I retag things the question automatically gets bumped. I understand the benefit of this, and think it is good policy in general, but in the question I edited I don't think it was necessary.

Basically I am wondering if anybody can recommend some SE-fu that I can practice to keep my dumb edits form bumping the questions to the front page.

PS by dumb edits I mean things that don't pertain to content and are completely superficial.

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    $\begingroup$ I wonder if re-tagging edits count as edits which "don't pertain to content and are completely superficial"... $\endgroup$
    – user1729
    Commented Dec 7, 2012 at 11:27
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    $\begingroup$ SO ... be aware of the bumping. Do not do minor edits on long-dormant questions. Limit your self to 1 or 2 per day for important edits on long-dormant questions. (Of course questions already on the front page do not count against that 1 or 2 limit.) $\endgroup$
    – GEdgar
    Commented Dec 7, 2012 at 15:26
  • $\begingroup$ @Sean I just found out about this. I do minor changes from time to time (typos in grammar and spelling) just to clean things up. I hadn't realized it bumped up questions. Given the responses already made, it looks like we'll just have to restrain from keeping that kind of editing. $\endgroup$
    – TheRealFakeNews
    Commented Apr 9, 2013 at 22:09

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This sort of thing has come up many times on meta.stackoverflow.com, for example in the question Could we have the ability to mark a change as minor in questions or answers? from October 2009. The simple answer is "no".

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  • $\begingroup$ that is really unfortunate, would it be worth me going over there and voting it up you think? Thanks for the answer though. $\endgroup$
    – Sean Tilson
    Commented Dec 17, 2010 at 20:33
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    $\begingroup$ @Sean: I suspect it will make no difference to vote it up, but I can't see how it would hurt. Searching some combination of the words "edit", "bump", "minor", etc. on meta.SO, will lead you other threads where you can see the reasoning on both sides. $\endgroup$
    – Jonas Meyer
    Commented Dec 17, 2010 at 21:35
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    $\begingroup$ The reason is to prevent a malicious 2k user from converting a long-dead post to spam. $\endgroup$
    – mathlander
    Commented Jan 16, 2023 at 2:24
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FYI, edits within 5 minutes of the original post time are treated as "silent" updates and do not bump a post. You could edit a post multiple times in that 5 minute window and no bumping or revisions occur.

So my advice is, try to identify problems in that 5 minute interval, if you can.

Beyond that, editing should push posts up so the community is able to see and vet what is going on.

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Dear Sean,

In addition to the fact that there is nothing to be done about this, I don't think you should worry too much about it. When answers are good, I don't think it hurts if they reappear from time to time on the front page.

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    $\begingroup$ thanks matt. I will take this as a complement. :) $\endgroup$
    – Sean Tilson
    Commented Dec 18, 2010 at 18:47
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Now there is an option to use saves, i.e., a user can created several list of questions and add notes to the saved question.

So perhaps a reasonable thing to do - for users who want to help with editing and, at the same time do not want to flood the frontpage - might be creating a list for questions you'd like to edit and coming back to that list (when the time permits) and editing a few questions at the time.

In fact, one can create even several such lists. (For example, a separate list for questions which need retagging, questions where the title needs editing, questions which have picture instead of text, various other edits, ...)

This has also the advantage that if you notice a question needs editing while doing something else, saving it to a list is rather quick and it is much smaller distraction than stopping what you were working on and editing said question.

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