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I'd like to reject the edits made to my answer at Does entropy contribute work? How do I do that?

While I appreciate the editor catching the spelling typos, the editor has introduced several mistakes in both form and content.

I believe those who would presume to edit the content of other's posts should first look to themselves and ensure they are more qualified in the subject than the poster whose post they're editing before they do so.

I won't bother getting into the content mistakes, since that would be laborious, but the form mistakes include changing "$p$" (for pressure) to "$P$".

I could try to reverse the editor's mistakes by editing them out, but that would be laborious, and there are so many that I might miss some. It would be far easier to just revert to my last version, and then edit the spelling typos.

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    $\begingroup$ Please avoid ad hominem attacks. While the edits made are a mixed bag they include significant improvements to your post and constitute significant effort, and these were not serious changes to the content (perhaps just imho). It would have been easier to go through it once again rather than roll back (again imho). If you don't like the open inclusive philosophy behind the site's operation perhaps you might consider setting up your own. $\endgroup$
    – Buck Thorn Mod
    Sep 13, 2021 at 8:32
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    $\begingroup$ OK, fair point, I replaced my statement about editorial qualifications with something more general. Having said that, isn't your statement to avoid ad hominem attacks somewhat hypocritical? Recall that your very first interaction with me on this site was to write the following gratuitous comment about one of my questions: "There's something seriously wrong here" [emphasis mine], when in fact there was nothing wrong, you just didn't (as you subsequently acknowledged) understand the statistical mechanics. I.e., if you're really conserned about interacting courteously, why use "seriously"? $\endgroup$
    – theorist
    Sep 13, 2021 at 16:03
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    $\begingroup$ Also, isn't "If you don't like the open inclusive philosophy behind the site's operation perhaps you might consider setting up your own" a form of snark? I think editing the content of someone's posts is much more agressive than editing the typography, and should be approached with a lot consideration, discretion, and humility. As far as I can recall, I've never myself presumed to edit anyone's answer here--I restrict myself to asking questions or making comments in the Comments. And being very careful before editing the content of answers is not inconsistent with site etiquette. $\endgroup$
    – theorist
    Sep 13, 2021 at 16:06
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    $\begingroup$ I don't recall our first interaction - feel free to provide a link - and I apologize if you thought I was rude. I should probably have written "There seems to be something seriously wrong here". The "seriously" is a way of accentuating the degree to which something is (or might appear to be) wrong, it should not necessarily indicate a personal attack. $\endgroup$
    – Buck Thorn Mod
    Sep 13, 2021 at 16:11
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    $\begingroup$ Regarding my second comment, it was not snark. The site is mostly self-regulating, and there are measures in place to attempt to distribute responsibility for evaluating the quality of content and editorial practices. I usually proceed carefully when editing to avoid altering intent, but I don't discriminate between q&a. Feel free to edit answers if you see flaws in spelling, punctuation, grammar, formatting, inclusion of mathjax etc. $\endgroup$
    – Buck Thorn Mod
    Sep 13, 2021 at 16:21
  • $\begingroup$ Part of the risk of posting in this forum is the wiki-like nature of the content, which allows others to edit and modify, in principle. I will have to browse more about this issue in the meta pages and documentation to see what users have thought about this, and to what degree they feel it should be tolerated. $\endgroup$
    – Buck Thorn Mod
    Sep 13, 2021 at 16:22
  • $\begingroup$ Here's a post that addresses editing, and provides some answers on when it might be appropriate: chemistry.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/3732/… Minor (trivial) edits are in general discouraged. However there is evidence (see the answer by Melanie Shebel) that tidy posts (q or a) attract more traffic. $\endgroup$
    – Buck Thorn Mod
    Sep 13, 2021 at 17:53

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I completely agree that although the edit fixed some MathJax issues, it was mostly unnecessary and introduced new problems. Usually you should see a Rollback link in your editing history within the previous version:

roll 'em changes back

Further details on main Meta: What is a 'rollback'? The editor had over 2000 rep points which allowed their edit to be applied directly and outside review queues, so there were no third-party vetting or approval process.

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    $\begingroup$ Thanks @andselisk. OT, but you mentioned MathJax. Are you referring to my use of, say, $pV$-work (\$pV\$-work) instead of pV-work (*pV*-work)? I prefer the former because there the glyphs in my text match those in my eqns. [E.g., p and V in $pV$-work (\$pV\$-work) exactly match p and V in $pV=nRT$ (\$pV=nRT\$), while p and V in p (*p*) and V (*V*) do not.] The horiz. spacing in $pV$-work doesn't look good, and I could clean that up with a negative space, e.g., $pV\!$-work (\$pV\!\$-work ); but that gets laborious. Is there an easy way to get both matching glyphs & correct spacing? $\endgroup$
    – theorist
    Sep 13, 2021 at 6:39
  • $\begingroup$ @theorist No prob. I was mostly rereferring to italic textual labels which should be upright (such as $S_\mathrm{sys},$ not $S_{sys}).$ As for pV vs $pV,$ technically both are correct. It's just my personal take that it's better to sacrifice minor appearance details (spacing you've mentioned) in favour of exact appearance of the same variable both in a paragraph and in a formula block. That's said, I'd go with $pV$ everywhere — but what you did is fine too. $\endgroup$
    – andselisk Mod
    Sep 13, 2021 at 12:49

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