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To what detail level should orthographic errors be edited?

Obviously, one would edit, if the error occurs in the actual answer. (What is the German word for house? Answer: Hous.)

But right now, I have seen a question in German that contains many errors and I think that it would do a disservice to the German learners on this site to leave them unedited.

The question is to what detail: Do we also edit errors in puncutation, for example?

2 Answers 2

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Q&A site for students having questions about German ...

Since one of the site's purposes is to help students to learn the language, we should make sure that there are no mistakes. Every obvious mistake should be corrected. That includes punctuation.

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  • You should realize that this might lead to some discussion as German has some local variance.
    – Phira
    Commented May 24, 2011 at 20:04
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    @thei, I wouldn't call it an obvious mistake if it's correct somewhere.
    – Tim
    Commented May 24, 2011 at 20:05
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    Every clear mistake should be corrected, but the corrections themselves should be so obvious that no discussion is needed. (This is how it works on Math.SE.)
    – Glen Wheeler
    Commented May 25, 2011 at 8:00
  • I would expect little typos or clear grammar mistakes to be "wiki-gnomed" regularly, without discussion, in either English or German.
    – Arthaey
    Commented Jun 2, 2011 at 6:13
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Das kann unter Umständen viel Arbeit für die »Moderatoren« bedeuten und auch ziemlich unangenehm sein. Ich schlage vor, die Fehler höchstens zu markieren. Weist auf sie unter dem Text hin, ohne in diesen einzugreifen. Nach einem solchen Eingriff wird niemand seine begangenen Fehler erkennen können.

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  • It's not bad after you get used to it, and it is not only the job of moderators, but everyone above a certain limit is able to correct and does so. See at the top of the page the entry Users/Editors how many edits where made by whom.
    – user unknown
    Commented Jan 16, 2015 at 19:32
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    Nach einem solchen Eingriff wird niemand seine begangenen Fehler erkennen können. – Das stimmt nicht, es gibt ja einen einsehbaren Verlauf der Änderungen, hier für diese Antwort.
    – Wrzlprmft Mod
    Commented Jul 1, 2016 at 8:00

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