Question edited to alter meaning

Question

I'm new to this particular SE subsite, so maybe there's something I don't understand.

This question was edited by a different user in a way that fundamentally alterred its meaning. The asker of the question was interested about the answer to this question on an international level. An edit by the OP to further clarify this was rolled back to remove that added clarification.

I don't know the exact rules of this SE site, but other sites I participate in forbid edits which alter the meaning of a question. In this case, the OP is having their question changed against their will to restrict its scope from international to U.S. only and I don't see a good reason why. They link a YouTube video which makes a claim regarding the U.S.-- is this why? Are they really not allowed to ask internationally because the video they link only makes a claim about the U.S.? Seems silly to me.

Now the question is left in a state where it makes no mention of country, leaving it ambiguous. As a result, the (only positively voted) answer to the question only addresses it with regards to the U.S., which does not answer the OP's original question.

Answer 1

On this site we openly edit questions, even if it slightly changes meaning, when the alternative is closing them.

To recap:

• we edit questions to make them specifically about the claim presented
• we close questions that do not refer to a notable, empirical claim
• we edit answers to remove extensive personal speculation
• we delete answers which are only (or fundamentally about) personal speculation

It might sound harsh, but if we can't edit inappropriate content, we need to close or delete it; if we can't close it or delete it, then we would be allowing any content at all: this site does not have a specific topic and specific set of experts, we allow all kinds, based on those two rules: notability-based questions; evidence-based answers.

Answer 2

On this SE site, we have a strict requirement that all questions must be notable which stops us from having to answer every possible skeptical "curiosity" that some individual may have.

Looking at the history of the question, the user may well have been interested how this question could be addressed internationally, however the notable reference they supplied focused entirely on the US - so the question was edited to focus on that locale, as well as remove some spurious information (again, to focus the question).

This does not, in my opinion, change the "meaning" of the question - it just brings it in line with our site rules.