I am just venting, you can flame me if you want.

[Tyzmartar]

Greetings,

Lets pretend that I am giving you a hypothetical situation.

I understand how difficult it is to get someone to go over a story and do a decent job. It is basically an unrewarding task. I came across a fellow that had written a story in the subject that I am familiar in and is my favorite and needed some help with punctuation and grammar. I am no expert in either of those, don't get me wrong. I went over the draft and spent hours and hours, wondering if this person really spoke English or not. It was a good story, but man, it was hard to read. The author published the story, making barely any changes to it. I spent a long time trying to get this thing readable. It hurts me that almost none of my changes were reflected in the submitted story, and I served up the blatant grammar infraction changes on a platter.
I know that I am an asshole, I have accepted that. I know that the stories that I have written are what they are, but I at least try a little. It just irritates me! It could have been so much better, in my opinion of course. Like I said, I am a jerk, I know. I also know how easy it is to make mistakes, but it is like this author did it on purpose. The story was submitted a while ago, by the way.

My question is why would anyone ask for help, not accept it, and then submit an inferior story? And by inferior, I mean so many little grammar mistakes that it makes you ill when you read it.

 

[sr71plt]

There's a slight chance that the author made a mistake and submitted the wrong version (there have been reports of that happening). Beyond that, yes, the system here is that the author has it last and thus can submit anything she/he want. That's why I ask that I not be credited if I edit something to be posted here. With luck, you weren't named. I haven't experienced anything that bad, but I've had suggestions rejected (and I've rejected some when someone has edited me). If I see a preponderance of this I just don't accept another edit request from that author. (Also I don't take anything long the first time so I'm not spending hours and hours on finding out how well they write.)

 

[lovecraft68]

What makes that more frustrating is how many authors would like to find someone who could give that much time and effort and it gets wasted like that.

 

[thesidelongview]

Well, I certainly wouldn't waste the talents of an awesome editor. Would be happy to get feedback on my little opus.

 

[robertreams]

so far I have had only one author argue with me about changes (pronoun usage, what I call the heshes), but as far as I know he finally accepted my changes, but I share your frustration. When someone is not English-speaking, it can be like swimming through mud, also with so many changes, there is always a good chance of missing some, so I usually offer to do those twice. The ones I find truly frustrating are those already published, then kept on the site without changes.

 

[Todger65]

With all my edits now, especially from the non-English fraternity, I save a copy of the edits into a final file and accept all my changes. I then re read the whole thing and correct those that get missed, especially the missing spaces between edited words. Those are transferred to the initial edited file and returned to the author for their final acceptance.
I find that the majority of changes made are accepted and published.
The worst I have had to edit have been a software translation from another language, and the phrasing is all "arseholes to breakfast" a complete nightmare.