Here’s the thing: the original question was strictly for SEO. That to me suggests editing content not for value to the end user, but to search engines.
It also comes with a baked in assumption that this isn’t particularly done with the user’s consent or participation.
If it were an article, specifically as part of a content area designed to attract new people (for which SEO is practically an expectation), I’d expect that sort of thing to come up in a review pass. Because that’s what realistically should be happening - that sort of content gets passed to someone else to proof-read, check for tone, clarity etc.
Alternatively if it needed editing because it didn’t meet the published rules, that’s on the creator for failure to adhere to the published rules. SEO is not implied to be a reason one would be editing the topic in that case.
But for general topic participation? There should be no reason to edit that for SEO. Tagging/categorisation isn’t about editing the content, and Tracy was as ever tilting at windmills to make some, any, kind of relevant point, by setting up the argument that adding tags is somehow overriding my authorial intent (it’s not, and tagging being done by the moderators is a good thing because it implies a sense of consistency that is useful to everyone)
Note that there is a huge difference between editing for SEO and editing for clarity and comprehensibility. Note that there is also a huge factor about getting the author involved and it being a discussion - you come along and edit my posts in the name of clarity and tell me you’ve done it, why the heck should I keep participating if you’re just going to edit it without talking to me about it? If you take the view that how I write content isn’t up to the level you deem acceptable, you can write it yourself, or you can talk to me about it and we figure it out together. Editing it after the fact and merely “doing me the favour of telling me you've done it” is pretty rude, really.
For all Tracy’s assertions here, I‘m pretty sure he hasn’t actually been on the receiving end of it, and the moments he would have been, he would have acted exactly as I would have.
It’s about respect - if you want my contributions, respect the effort that went in. And if you want to improve it, come talk to me first, easy as that. Editing it behind my back for SEO (which, note, isn’t the same as editing for clarity) isn’t respectful.
The One vs the Many is an interesting debate. In my case when I use words, they are because they are the words I feel best makes my point. Editing what I have to say distorts that in all cases, even if the intent of what I was trying to say is preserved. But I’ve also been in the situation where things I’ve written were edited “for clarity” without telling me which ended up being less clear and eventually being factually incorrect. (Things I would not have gotten incorrect.) But because of the editing process, things were attributed to me that weren't my doing. This is why you need to involve the author - if their name remains on something, you need to be involving them so that you don’t misrepresent them!
Few people who create will pass up genuine attempts to improve their work as long as you work with them to do it. Even for SEO.
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