Sometimes I might see a question with a simple spelling errors or wrong tags and i just make this small change and it appears at the top of the Recent Activity section. These changes don't affect the question in any way and it makes me feel like I clog up the RA section.
So when you ask a question, when you ask a question, answer, or comment, it does not appear(clearly you want that published). However, when you go to edit, it is there to check if it is a major change (change question, update, etc), or not if it is a simple change (spelling, grammer, tags).