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Lately I have been seeing a lot of edits that only transform a URL into a hyperlink.

It sometimes helps the ease of reading, and makes it look a little bit better, but most of the times I feel that is useless.

Should these kind of edits be accepted?

An example of that will be: enter image description here

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Thanks so much for taking the time to visit the review queues.

TL;DR

Should these kind of edits be accepted?

Yes.

Unless...

Any edit (but especially suggested edits) should clean up the post in general. So if I run across a suggested edit in a post that needs much additional editing, I will Reject and Edit that suggestion. This has the effect of notifying the original editor that the review was rejected, and can show what the edit could have looked like.

In addition, edits to posts that should just be removed can also be rejected.

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    $\begingroup$ But when that edit only changes one single link and the question is very old, wouldn't that just give attention to something that is clearly understandable the way it was? Edits should be substantial, shouldn't they? $\endgroup$
    – Pedro Henrique Monforte
    Commented Aug 3, 2020 at 22:29
  • $\begingroup$ @PedroHenriqueMonforte, substantial edits are better then not. But if all a post needs is that one thing, then I do not see a problem. If someone were to do this on many posts in a day then it could get annoying on the front page. But a few a day, is in my opinion, simply tending the garden. $\endgroup$
    – Stephen Rauch Mod
    Commented Aug 4, 2020 at 1:52
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    $\begingroup$ There is a specific user, doing those trivial edits on posts from 2013, I am rejecting all of those as I think it does more harm than good. $\endgroup$
    – Pedro Henrique Monforte
    Commented Aug 4, 2020 at 2:02
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    $\begingroup$ Note that his entire reputation comes from over 80 trivial edits and association bonus. Since reputation equals privileges I few that this is a dangerous behavior to endorse. $\endgroup$
    – Pedro Henrique Monforte
    Commented Aug 4, 2020 at 2:10
  • $\begingroup$ Thanks for the feedback. I will agree that where the good edits ends and the nuisance edits starts is a judgement call. But I have more trouble agreeing that someone taking the time to do the edits presents an inherent danger. $\endgroup$
    – Stephen Rauch Mod
    Commented Aug 4, 2020 at 3:50
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    $\begingroup$ I have done over 10,000 edits on the network, and I can not agree that small edits are necessarily a bad idea. The system is setup this way for a reason. Getting most users to do cleanup edits is not an easy thing to do. We have so few edits on this site, that when a single user shows up and does quite a few, it is easily noticed. $\endgroup$
    – Stephen Rauch Mod
    Commented Aug 4, 2020 at 3:50
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    $\begingroup$ Also, converting a URL to hyperlink does not necessary improve the question I sometimes like to see where the URL is pointing, its not the same youtube, Wikipedia or kaggle $\endgroup$
    – Carlos Mougan
    Commented Aug 4, 2020 at 7:35
  • $\begingroup$ @StephenRauch datascience.stackexchange.com/review/suggested-edits/54714 $\endgroup$
    – Carlos Mougan
    Commented Aug 4, 2020 at 9:26
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    $\begingroup$ Thanks for clarifying, Stephen. The question has been on my mind too since this site has had many minor edits recently. So far, I thought edits are required to be substantial (that's how I understood our help site). It might need an update if such minor edits are really supposed to be encouraged. $\endgroup$
    – Jonathan
    Commented Aug 4, 2020 at 12:40
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    $\begingroup$ So, just to add, today I had to reject another edit, this time it editted an url from a command instead of a link reference. It edited (git clone url) to (git clone [text][Ref]), which is harmful to the answer. I think this kind of edit should never be accepted, and later this kind of behavior may lead to someone with ability to edit any question without the proper care for what editting should do. $\endgroup$
    – Pedro Henrique Monforte
    Commented Aug 11, 2020 at 0:33

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