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I think I understand the concept of marking a question or answer as "community wiki" -- it has involved a significant number of people such that it now belongs to "the community" rather than the OP. And I assume answers can be marked by humans or by the system when many edits have occurred. In the latter case, surely the "system correction" should only kick in after a significant number of edits have been made by different users?

For this question, Eastings/Northings OSGB36 Grid origin, I put a lot of work into my answer, making edits/additions stretching over a day or two. There are currently 12 edits to my answer. Candidate for CW? Perhaps. Except that they were all done by me. May I regain ownership?

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  • You never lost ownership of anything. "Candidate" means exactly that: your answer was not automatically made CW and nothing was changed about its status. It was simply flagged automatically to bring it to the attention of high-rep users and moderators who can quickly verify the numerous edits were not made in an effort to game the system.
    – whuber
    Apr 13, 2014 at 15:43
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    Mind making that (and the other comment) into an answer?
    – Martin F
    Apr 13, 2014 at 16:44

2 Answers 2

Reset to default
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I was not able to understand the policy of 10 edits by the sole editor of an Answer or Question triggering its conversion to Community Wiki until just now when I read:

One of the reasons for the automatic conversion once the original author edits 10 times is to discourage excessive bumping of questions. Every time you edit your question is bumped to the frontpage, which you can use to get additional attention to it. The reputation loss associated with having your question made CW is supposed to deter users from bumping their questions continuously by making minor edits.

It is frustrating to have your post be made CW just because you wanted to improve it further. The most effective way to avoid this is to try and do as much as possible per edit, if you edit some minor details, try to find some other stuff to improve and you might save one edit.

If your question is auto-wikified due to exceptional circumstances, e.g. because of an edit war, you can ask a moderator to reverse this.

I think you should ask the Moderators to reverse the auto-wikification of this Answer of yours.

As a postscript it is worth reading the Putting the Community back in Wiki blog that has just been posted.

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    That policy is old and has been replaced. In a recent moderator newsletter the SE Team explained "We have removed all of the formerly existing triggers that automatically converted a post to Community Wiki. In their place, there are now flags for moderator attention that are raised automatically by the system." In particular, the answer was not automatically made CW.
    – whuber
    Apr 13, 2014 at 15:46
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    @whuber I'm not sure how I missed that martinf was only talking about his Answer being flagged as a candidate for Cummunity Wiki rather than having already been auto-wikified. In any event the link to the new policy is useful.
    – PolyGeo Mod
    Apr 14, 2014 at 7:04
  • @PolyGeo -- FYI, you were right the first time. My A was wikified. And i was only speculating that it was automatic. The reversal took place after your answer appeared.
    – Martin F
    Apr 14, 2014 at 21:45
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This answer summarizes some comments I made earlier.

First, that policy (about automatic conversion of heavily-edited posts into CW) is old and has been replaced. In a recent moderator newsletter the SE Team explained

We have removed all of the formerly existing triggers that automatically converted a post to Community Wiki. In their place, there are now flags for moderator attention that are raised automatically by the system.

In particular, the answer was not automatically made CW.

Second, no "ownership" was lost. The term "candidate" means that the answer was not made CW and nothing was changed about its status. It was simply flagged automatically to bring it to the attention of high-rep users and moderators who can quickly verify the numerous edits were not made in an effort to game the system.

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  • Except in this case it seems a high-rep user, on seeing the flag, was the "automaton" who wikified it ;-)
    – Martin F
    Apr 14, 2014 at 21:50
  • I don't follow: AFAIK, your answer was never converted to CW.
    – whuber
    Apr 18, 2014 at 15:32
  • Yes it was. It was in CW status right from soon after it was created/edited until soon after i asked about it here -- about 6 weeks.
    – Martin F
    Apr 18, 2014 at 15:38
  • Oh, OK: you are discussing the old behavior of the system. (Back then people would flag posts to undo the automatic CW conversion and a moderator had to change it.) The whole point to this answer is that the behavior has changed, so the entire issue is moot.
    – whuber
    Apr 18, 2014 at 15:43
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    Just a bizarre coincidence that i was asking about it at the exact time the system was changing ;-)
    – Martin F
    Apr 18, 2014 at 17:23

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