<p>I know that people here are very squeamish and punctilious about editing questions of others, and rightly so (see <a href="https://stats.meta.stackexchange.com/a/2304/28666"><em>editing is not rewriting</em></a>). But here is one particular situation that I would like to discuss.</p>

<p>Here is a well-upvoted question with an accepted well-upvoted answer: <a href="https://stats.stackexchange.com/questions/22329">How does centering the data get rid of the intercept?</a> The question is, as the title indicates, specifically about linear regression. However, @ttnphns's answer also explains what centering does for PCA (and provides a very helpful figure). As a result, new questions about centering in PCA get closed as duplicates of that one.</p>

<p>The problem is that there is no way to guess from the title of this question that there is anything about PCA inside. So my intention is to edit the title to e.g. <em>"How does centering the data get rid of the intercept? How does it affect PCA?"</em> </p>

<p>But the OP was not asking about PCA. Is it okay under these circumstances to ignore OP's intention and proceed with broadening the title?</p>
