<p>These proposals are quite different.  </p>

<p><strong>Reduce the incentive to edit.</strong> To a reputation gain of 1? To 0? Already the incentive is very small and matches the idea that such edits are small (but positive) contributions. And the implication that any member is driven just by a desire for reputation is hard to test: we don't know what people's motives are unless they tell us. What is plausible or implausible is personal here as always. I have only my own memory of having enough reputation to edit (but not so much that I no longer received increments for editing) to recall that I just liked editing and liked to think I was contributing thereby; I was not doing it for the reputation, although clearly gaining was nicer than losing. </p>

<p><strong>Trivial edits should not rise to the top.</strong> I like the principle. If I edit say "principle component" to "principal component" and that's it, then the thread hasn't become more interesting to anyone and emphatically not more urgent. So, it would good to have an SE-wide flag "this edit is just cosmetic and should not bump the thread to most recent", except that </p>

<ol>
<li><p>As said, this requires a system-wide implementation. </p></li>
<li><p>Edits by those on probation still need to be checked. Was the trivial edit really trivial or a rogue case in which a major change has been made by accident or even deliberately, so that is a underhand route to messing up someone else's post and trying harder not to be spotted? </p></li>
<li><p>We don't want, I suggest, to start debating criteria for what is a minor edit and what is not, as there will be always be grey cases. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>I think at bottom this is a trade-off between different kinds of irritation: </p>

<p>a. The irritation that the editorially-minded see when they spot little things that cry out to be fixed. </p>

<p>b. The irritation that some people have when they find that a thread that looks interesting at the top of the list is only cosmetically different. </p>

<p>c. The irritation that people reviewing edits may feel when they find that an edit is purely minor. (For my part, I recognise a kindred spirit and do what else I can to improve the post.) </p>
