7

This answer has a voluntary typo by the author, yet people keep correcting it. I've explained in the edit reason why it should be kept, and it's already been rolled back.

I'm not sure what I should do. On the one hand, the content is community-owned, especially if the edits keep coming (since it'll go in community wiki). On the other hand, I think the author's typo is fun, and the original author should still keep his answer in the tone he wants. (After all, it's not community wiki.)

I don't want to get in an edit war, so I'll just ask here what should be done.

  • 1
    it would help to have a bold moderator comment under the post, with text similar to one used in Zalgo answer, The post looks exactly as it is supposed to look - "steak" included. Meanwhile, I added my comment explaining this and referring this meta discussion – gnat Sep 4 '14 at 7:52
  • I put a temporary lock on the answer for 1 week for reasons of content dispute. Further edits can continue on this answer after the week has passed. This gives the community time to talk about the content dispute without a rollback war starting in the meantime. – maple_shaft♦ Sep 4 '14 at 10:32
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    I believe you mean "intentional typo" not a "voluntary typo." – user53019 Sep 4 '14 at 19:08
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    Why are you getting involved with this anyway? If the author of the post is so invested in the typo, then why doesn't he just fix it himself (and include an explanation of the non-obvious pun)? – Robert Harvey Sep 4 '14 at 19:35
  • Sometime you just have to accept that your opinion isn't the one everyone else agrees with and just walk away. – ratchet freak Sep 4 '14 at 19:46
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    Could somebody explain to me what the pun was? I love a good pun, and I feel dumb for not getting it. – Cody Piersall Sep 8 '14 at 2:49
14

One could put into the markdown a comment indicating that the text was intentional.

Oh wait, we already did - remember that time we met, a few weeks ago,
over steak and drinks? That was a great stake.
<!-- That is supposed to be stake - not steak.  I know.  It's intentional. -->
We talked about cars. ...

This would then indicate both to someone going in and editing it along with anyone looking at the side by side markdown (how I normally view suggested edit reviews) that this was something that wasn't to be changed.

When looking at a suggested edit review I consider it 'stateless'. There's the old version - here's the new version. Is it an improvement? yes? Approved. I don't see the history (thats quite a bit of a hoop to jump through to view). I only see the text. Thus, any hints to editors or reviewers need to be in the markdown itself.

At that point, I would see that this is the state the author wanted and work from that. Without any other guidance in the text, I have to go on what I see.

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    Hi, author here. I want it to be "stake" and not "steak" because it annoys SomeGuy, which makes me happy, which makes me want to answer more questions. – Zirak Sep 4 '14 at 19:13
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    @Zirak But it annoys SomeGuy, which will make him unhappy, which makes him want to answer less questions. – ratchet freak Sep 4 '14 at 19:19
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    @ratchetfreak Well, it annoys SomeGuy whenever I mention it to him. Annoyance points: 1, happiness points: 7. Overall, 6 points to the greater good. – Zirak Sep 4 '14 at 19:20
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    I disagree about the greater good thing. Seems like this only benefits one person, and (from my perspective) not for any rational reason. – codebreaker Sep 9 '14 at 16:43
  • I say just delete the answer since you are trying to annoy people on purpose. – Ramhound Sep 10 '14 at 22:00
10

Perhaps I'm missing the joke. The typo doesn't add any humor to the answer itself, but detracts from it. As far as I can tell from the chat transcript, it was desired to be kept solely because the mistake annoys another user. I'm all for letting people control the tone of their posts, but in this particular case it's not clear how it enhances the tone, and I think it needs to be shown that the rollback is more than an intentional troll.

  • It makes me happy(er), and being happy(er) is good! Bonus points because it doesn't really decrease the overall quality of the post, a typo is insignificant. – Zirak Sep 4 '14 at 19:17
7

The entire line with the word in question

, over steak and drinks? That was a great stake. We talked about cars.

could be removed without materially affecting the answer at all.

So it would go from:

Oh wait, we already did - remember that time we met, a few weeks ago, over steak and drinks? That was a great stake. We talked about cars. In fact, you seemed to be quite the expert on cars.

to:

Oh wait, we already did - remember that time we met, a few weeks ago? We talked about cars. In fact, you seemed to be quite the expert on cars.

The misspelling doesn't improve the answer, and if there's a pun in there it's not terribly obvious.

I'd recommend we remove the line as suggested above and fix the other typos in the answer.

The suggestion isn't originally mine, but was brought up in chat

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    I didn't get the joke/pun/whatever. I had to read the other answers here to know that it is just to annoy some guy (pun intended there). – Deco Sep 5 '14 at 2:34
  • You could remove a lot of things from my answer. The beginnings reads more like a conversation than a regular answer, so I added in a decoration to make it more personal - if you were out to dinner with friends and had a great steak, wouldn't you mention it? – Zirak Sep 5 '14 at 10:55
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    While each answer to a question in programmers SE needs to offer some sort of knowledge that the answers to other questions don't provide, I think there is a subtle difference between not writing an answer that offers any input and writing one that is written to entertain. I don't have any problems with an entertaining answer. It just simply has to be appropriate and answer the question. That said, let each person have his or her own style, so long as it is well-written and useful. – Neil Sep 5 '14 at 11:03

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