Editing my own posts

Started by Hannes, July 30, 2015, 04:24:46 AM

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TheBadger

Quote from: Kadri on July 30, 2015, 08:01:19 AM

LOL! Not much to say.
If it gets you feel better it protects us against stupid history alterings...at least at a forum scale.
But we have to trust Oshyan and Matt, can we? :D

Trust them to what?
It has been eaten.

Kadri

"stupid history alterings...at least at a forum scale"

Now i want to delete my post Michael :D

TheBadger

HA HA HA HA, yeah me too!  ;D
It has been eaten.


Oshyan

Wow, I had no idea people were so fiercely attached to editing their old posts. Well, I *did* make it so that after a certain period of time you could no longer edit posts. And it *was* because of the recent incident of a user going through and manually erasing all their posts. This was not the only time this has happened, in fact dandelO did a similar thing long ago! Thankfully we have him back. :D

If people absolutely need that capability for good reasons, we can talk about how to make it work best. But I think you guys need to think about the context in which you are posting here. This is a *public forum*. Once you post something, it "belongs to the internet" in effect. Google may cache it and make it available after you make changes or delete it. Other posters may quote what you said, in whole or in part, and you can't modify or delete *their quote of you*. People may copy what you've written or otherwise posted and re-post or mirror it elsewhere. Archive.org may even archive it *forever*, openly, for all to see.

So you should not, in my opinion, expect - much less rely on - the ability to delete or remove your posts long after making them in a public place. I realize this is somewhat counter to some ideas and legislation in the EU and if we're required to comply with that at some point we will. But generally speaking I think it's just common sense that anything you share here - or in any public venue - is not necessarily "in your control" anymore.

If you *want* it to be in your control and allowing that capability is not more problematic than it's worth, then fair enough. But when a user deletes everything they've ever said, it doesn't just affect them, it affects every thread they participated in, every response to anything they said. It removes context and reduces clarity. And for what? Because somehow, things that were once said (perhaps long ago), are no longer palatable to the person? They want to erase any evidence that they ever even participated somewhere? Is that their *right*? Maybe. But I'm definitely not convinced yet.

To address more specifically the (few, I think) common reasons why people do this, yes I understand the ability to edit *thread titles/subjects* is useful. However there may be other ways around that which we can consider. If it is often enough needed, then it may be justification for having unlimited edit time, but again I'm not yet convinced. Other than that reason, I don't know of any compelling ones that require *unlimited* edit time. The ability to go back and edit old posts has, in my view, little value. Editing an old post instead of posting a new reply is usually either confusing (replies below the top post no longer make sense in many cases, because they were replying to the original content), or can even sometimes be downright *deceptive* (think of someone editing their words after the fact, when someone claims they were being offensive or doing something unfair; they can then claim they didn't, just a simple example).

If there are other important and valuable reasons that I'm overlooking please let me know. Again this subject is not closed, we're open to discussion on it. Just keep in mind that this is a public space and expecting to have control of what you write here - or anywhere but your own site on the Internet - is probably a lost cause. That doesn't mean we don't want to give reasonable rights and capabilities to users here. It's just something to remember as you participate in online discussions, etc.

Oh, last thing: if it ends up being difficult to find common ground on this, one possibility is a special member group that has unlimited edit permissions on their posts. Then people who really need the capability for legitimate reasons can use it, and it doesn't have to affect everyone else.

- Oshyan

Kadri


A reasonable time for editing is enough to me Oshyan. Some forums editing times are too restricted like 1-2 hours (not sure).

Oshyan

Yes, the current setting is a fairly lengthy 2.5 days (3600 minutes), which seemed like a good compromise.

- Oshyan

Kadri


Yes.I make my small corrections mostly in that time frame.Works for me.

dandelO


Dune

A few days max is good enough for me too, yes. I'll choose my words more carefully from now on  8)

Hannes

I can live with that. I truly understand the reasons why there is a time limit now, and it's not that necessary for me to edit my old posts. Updating the subject is the only reason to do this after the mentioned time frame.


Dune

I think we should be able to edit other people's posts  >:( ;D ;) ::)

8)

Kadri


Martin instead of lurking around with your head come and delete...post some new things  ;D

TheBadger

#29
QuoteYes, the current setting is a fairly lengthy 2.5 days (3600 minutes)
Grudgingly, I find that reasonable, mostly.

;D
I edited. I may edit this post 40 times in the next two day on principal. Probably not though.
It has been eaten.