EmoCat said:
Was this thread originally about people fixing typos and saying fixed, or people changing the content of a comment to make it look like the original commenter has a different view of what they actually do?

I find the latter extremely frustrating and I'd say it shouldn't be allowed but I reckon the typo or grammar fixing should be allowed - it seems to me like the same sort of deal with post descriptions, where anyone can change it, but will it be a useful change?

For example, I was on a post a couple of months back and saw that there was a story in the description that was nearly illegible because of the punctuation and grammar errors, so I tried to fix it up without changing the story too much.

Just my opinion.

There was a commenting game that used to happen on the site years ago, where people would respond to someone else's comment, but change the quoted text. They'd do it for laughs, for arguments, to say the opposite viewpoint, to make fun of the person they were quoting, etc etc. And after awhile, it was becoming a very widespread form of trolling and getting out of control. So this thread was formed and the rule created against doing that.

Basically, if you're quoting someone because you're legitimately responding to them and adding to the conversation, then it's fine if you also quietly fix a typo or two in the quoted section before posting your comment. No one's going to get in trouble for that.

But if you're doing it just to harass another user over a mistake, making a really big deal out of the goof they made, or changing the content of the quoted text to something they never said...that's when it becomes borderline behavior and could possibly get someone in trouble depending on the details.

So it's mostly common sense.

Also, fixing the grammar mistakes or misspellings in a description is fine, so long as the content and meaning is pretty much kept intact. Those get seen by a lot of people, and we encourage people to try and keep English mistakes to a minimum in descriptions. And sometimes it takes more than one person to get the errors fixed. But again, inventing information or changing the description to mean something that's personal opinion/agenda or defamatory would be against the rules and could get someone in trouble. It's just common sense. We're not out to get anyone, but there's a line that it's good to not cross too. If that makes sense.