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I submitted an edit correcting a code bug in an answer to a popular and old question. A reviewer recommended to reject with reason:

This edit was intended to address the author of the post and makes no sense as an edit. It should have been written as a comment or an answer.

I'm confused as to how this reason applies to my edit. First of all, the edit is intended to help future viewers, not the post's author. Second of all, there is already an over 2 year old comment pointing out the bug so adding another comment seems unlikely to help. Thirdly, adding a separate answer is even worse as the post is very good on the whole - it just needs a minor correction. We have an edit feature, presumably so that we can make improvements to existing answers without bothering the OP.

In this situation does it make sense to reject the edit? And does the reason make sense?

Note: I am avoiding linking the question because I am asking to understand the site, not to have my edit approved.

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    $\begingroup$ Note that this reason is the explanation given by the system for the "attempt to reply" rejection reason. I agree with your confusion, perhaps the reviewer mis-clicked? Or something else entirely? Either way, I don't think trying to extrapolate site policy from a single rejection reason makes much sense. If you don't want to discuss this particular case, perhaps it is better to reword your question to be about whether edits aiming to correct answers are in general acceptable (I think they are) and how to make them more likely to be approved (this may be non-trivial). $\endgroup$
    – Discrete lizard Mod
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 19:16
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    $\begingroup$ As for this specific edit, you are correct that the implementation was buggy, but your edit was erroneous as well, as the other reviewer who rejected mentioned. I've made an edit where I think I've fixed the bug correctly, do let me know if it is still incorrect. (or make another edit) $\endgroup$
    – Discrete lizard Mod
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 19:23
  • $\begingroup$ @Discretelizard Your edit is correct. But if we insist on having the "return" keyword it should be added to the other cases. $\endgroup$
    – Reinstate Monica
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 19:33
  • $\begingroup$ Yes, that is probably better, I'll edit it in. $\endgroup$
    – Discrete lizard Mod
    Commented Jul 9, 2018 at 19:53
  • $\begingroup$ It's me that reject your edit. I rejected it because I thought you have changed the code logic or functionality according to this post. However, I notice that the "even if you think you're correcting it" part is removed from the post it refers to so I'm not sure whether such edit should be rejected or not now. I apologize if I wrongly rejected your correction. $\endgroup$
    – xskxzr
    Commented Jul 12, 2018 at 5:06

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Assuming that your edit did, in fact, correct a bug in an answer, it was welcome and this rejection reason does not make sense. Edits to “correct minor mistakes” are encouraged. Thank you!

Without seeing the edit in question and without asking the person who rejected it, it is difficult to know why they picked this rejection reason. They may have made a mistake, or they may have considered your edit too radical.

Some people reject editing as a matter of principle, or because they're used to forums with stronger post ownership where editing is reserved for extreme cases. If you're ever confronted with such people, please point politely them to the policy on editing (which explicitly states “If you are not comfortable with the idea of your contributions being collaboratively edited by other trusted users, this may not be the site for you”). On Stack Exchange, editing other people's posts is encouraged as long as you improve the post and don't fundamentally change its meaning.

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