It is a matter of nudging them towards epiphany. If you just fix the node quietly, it does not aid the author at all. If you send them a message, perhaps they will check to see what is different. Each person's nodes may not be as important as national security to us, but they are pretty important to the author. If they weren't, people wouldn't get all bent out of shape over XP and reputation.

On the other hand, if you're deleting socially questionable comments, the author has more of a right to know.

It is my feeling, generally following from the First Amendment, that editors should be keeping their grubby little fingers (mine too) out of the content. As far as I understood it, the editors sole responsibility is layout and navigation problems.
I keep seeing people considering nodes with complaints about the content or the titles. I always vote to keep those nodes as is because I do not like heavy-handedness. Not to mention the fact that a disclaimer like "Your post may be edited for content" is conspicuously absent when posts are submitted.

I'm sort of the mind that the Edit History should be public, so that non-editors can make a sport of checking out nodes that have been edited, and then start a whole list of threads to be edited by complaining about the ones that have been edited...

Which will not happen if content is left alone.

There is one case in which I think it is acceptable to edit content. This is the case in which the site's policies towards content are written down and conspicuously posted, with aforementioned disclaimer and a link to the policy shown (perhaps above the textbox) to posters prior to submission.

I am a hard-liner on free speech here because I think it is too easy for the site to morph into a place where "stupid" questions are silenced. And it's not hard to imagine, given how many times I've seen someone put "Please delete because this is a FAQ" as their reason for considering a node. The site has a lot of users who are here because it has in the past been extremely friendly, tolerant, and patient -- required characteristics of teachers.

If trolls take over the site, I will rethink my position, but they seem to be under control right now.

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