Things that would facilitate more editing:
Editing Standards/guidelines
If we collectively define quality, then I'm more likely to edit towards quality. Editing conventions are, in my opinion, the most important thing we can do to encourage editing. (Probably the second most important thing is to be civil to those who fall short of the editing conventions.) Some possible suggestions:
- Titles should be questions, complete with capitalization and punctuation.
- Link. Link some more. Then check the question again to see if there are any opportunities to link further. Are there any terms that someone coming to the question might not immediately understand? Links provide context, facilitate deeper research, help people to recognize connections which are really vital. Links are particularly important for questions that are marginal. PM:SE should leverage the rest of the internet to support our Q&A.
- (Our editing standards could probably include some conventions on how we supply links and when we choose to supply links; if I recall, wikimedia has a convention we might use as a starter).
- Link text should be descriptive. In most cases the reader should be able to predict what they'll see when they follow the link.
- When I see a question that includes a bunch of jargon that is not supported by links, I skip past it. When I see the same question with links, I often click on the links and learn something. Perhaps not enough to answer the question, but enough that PM:SE has taught me something. It is much easier for random readers to recognize and wikify jargon than it is for OP to recognize jargon.
- If you reference a product name, it is very useful to link to the product.
- Several users make very effective use of headers, bullets and tl:dr summaries. I'd like to follow their example, but it would be easier if we had conventions to promote consistency. (e.g. if the message is longer than 3 paragraphs, include a tl:dr)
Permission/invitation to edit
If the OP indicates in the post that they would like help in making the question more professional, then I'm more likely to assist. A comment stating that the question would be improved by editing makes it much easier to edit. This is also true for answers. If you feel that your answer is factually correct, but you don't have the time/familiarity with markup language to improve the appearance, drop a comment and I'm sure I'm not the only one who will take a look.
As @jmort253 points out, SE is built on the assumption that those who have reputation will actively curate the site. But if that assumption were working as well as we hope, he wouldn't have needed to ask the question. So we need to help motivate one another. It is easy enough to edit for hygiene (removing actively confusing, erroneous or ugly content). But there are questions where my mouse hovers over the edit button and I can't quite decide to take the plunge. If OP or another PM:SE participant were to label the question as a candidate for editing, it might just convince me to take the chance.
Extrinsic motivation
Much as we're ashamed to admit, it, we do respond to badges. To reputation. To the acclaim of our peers and the lamentations of their... no, never mind, I think that's something else.
Editing Help
Here is the Editing/Markdown Help, which explains all of the markdown syntax used to help format posts. This tool will help editors more quickly resolve issues in a particular post.
