Can I edit a post to replace Hiragana by Kanji?

Question

English

Can I edit a post to replace Hiragana by Kanji?

For example:

• ごはんをたべます → ご[飯]{はん}を[食]{た}べます
• とうきょうと → [東京都]{とうきょうと}

日本語

平仮名を漢字に直す編集はしてもいいですか？
例:

• ごはんをたべます → ご[飯]{はん}を[食]{た}べます
• とうきょうと → [東京都]{とうきょうと}

Answer 1

I think so far the consensus has been that stylistic choices of the poster should be respected.

There are several reasons not to replace hiragana by kanji (possibly with furigana)

1. the source text is in hiragana, so changing a word to kanji will not be faithful to the original
2. there may be several choices (見る vs. 観る etc.) and it is not clear which one the author intended; the hiragana might have been intentional
3. the edit itself doesn't really add anything to the post
4. the original author of the post may be annoyed that his/her post was changed to something different than he/she intended
5. it is not clear that kanji+furigana is necessarily better, since the text becomes more cluttered. (Furigana doesn't yet display nicely across all platforms, and even if it did, having more furigana than necessary might be considered disruptive rather than helpful.)

Some users put requests for edits explicitly into their profiles. In that case, I think such edits would be welcomed by the authors and by the community at large.

Otherwise, I would say that we should refrain from editing a post to replace hiragana by kanji.

Answer 2

Yes, of course you can. According to Help Center > Privileges > Edit Questions and Answers,

When should I edit posts?

Any time you feel you can make the post better, and are inclined to do so. Editing is encouraged!

Some common reasons to edit are:

• to fix grammatical or spelling mistakes
• to clarify the meaning of a post without changing it
• to correct minor mistakes or add addendums / updates as the post ages
• to add related resources or hyperlinks

Tiny, trivial edits are discouraged- try to make the post significantly better when you edit, correcting all problems that you observe.

The examples in the question seem to be improving readability and clarifying the meaning of the three words.