<p>At one level you urge just what we should be doing generally with every question, seeking to improve further what is good and working to correct and even delete what is wrong. </p>

<p>Moreover, there is no problem, in my view, with your drawing attention on Meta to a particularly interesting question on the main site as worthy of attention and further effort. </p>

<p>In this case, however, I suggest that your rewriting of the question goes much further than is appropriate. Edits should correct or improve presentation (grammar, spelling, punctuation, poor style, code and mathematical formatting, etc., etc.) and at most correct small and entirely uncontroversial errors. Even where a poster makes an obvious slip (e.g. confusing dependent and independent variable) it is best to flag it explicitly, as the poster may indeed be confused, on something basic as well as on something more advanced. </p>

<p>But edits should not usually be a rewriting of someone else's question to what the editor prefers. In this case you added a long interpretation of what the question means but kept use of the first person in writing. Whether we agree, individually or collectively, that it's now a better question is not to me the main point. <strong>Editing is not rewriting.</strong> </p>

<p>Conversely, it could be argued that the several answers that do not focus on real-world examples were underlining more general interest in over-fitting. If it is in order for you to steer the question in the direction you prefer, would it not be in order for someone else to edit the question to make it a wider-ranging question on over-fitting, and make more of the answers and comments fit better retrospectively? This is the dangerous territory you've entered. Once good taste or personal judgement is the arbiter, your good taste or judgement may not match anyone else's. </p>

<p>Further, in editing my own answer (which is, in principle, entirely in order) you introduced some arguably irrelevant material, which I've reversed. </p>

<p>On down-voting answers: I think this is best reserved for answers that are wildly wrong, wildly irrelevant or obnoxious (spam, offensive, etc.). I hope you are not suggesting otherwise. You seem to be urging a much more aggressive approach to material you disagree with than fits well on this forum. Down-voting has its place, deletion is sometimes called for, but by far the best tactics are to show reasoned disagreements (e.g. in comments), to up-vote the better material, and most of all to provide better answers. Yet further, whenever a question is controversial, a variety of views and styles of answer in reply can be highly valuable. Most of all, you should never urge others to down-vote or even up-vote on particular answers; that's the politics of the gang or the crowd. People should always vote on their individual judgement. </p>

<p>I think your motives are excellent, but there is an excess of zeal here. </p>
