Editing other people's questions and answers

Question

How is it that, with my reputation, I can edit other people's questions and answers but if there is a suggested edit, not only I cannot approve it, but I cannot edit (in other ways) that answer myself?

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EDIT: Let me rephrase my question since the answers, useful as they are about suggested edits etc., do not make the matter clear for me.

Say I notice somebody has written “Dnate Aghilieri” rather than “Dante Alighieri” and I intend to correct this. Now, in general I could do so with no obstacle. But if someone with a low reputation already attempted to do so, I cannot neither fix it myself nor approve that same edit. What is the rationale for this?

Answer 1

Since you have the privilege of editing posts, you can also approve suggested edits, but suggested edits are approved by two users; it is approved from a single user when that user is the user who posted or is a diamond moderator.

You cannot approve the suggested edit using the edit link, but you can do something else:

• In the queue for reviewing suggested edit, click on the Improve button

• In that way you are taking the suggested edit, and edit it; if you then need to reject the suggested edit because it is bad, then you can deselect the "Suggested edit was helpful" checkbox.

Answer 2

You mean suggested edit, not suspended edit, I think.

And suggested edits are pending - waiting for approval. If you also start editing, which edit should be used, if the pending suggested edit is approved?

Edits are blocked to allow the suggested edit to either go through or not - when the process is finished, edits are enabled again.