A note about edit windows

MarkMark Mod
edited September 28 in General

Until now there's been no limit on editing posts. That helped with meet-up threads, clubs and evolving advice posts. It's not ideal though because when a post changes long after people have replied, the thread stops making sense.

The edit rules are now as follows:

Forum overall

  • Default: you can edit your posts for 24 hours.
  • Established members: you get 3 days to edit your replies.
  • Thread opener: if you’re established, the first post of a thread you started stays editable while the thread is open and active. Once 3 months go by with no new replies and no edits to that post, the edit window closes.
  • Sticky threads: if your thread is stickied, you can edit all your posts in it for as long as it stays open and stickied.

The Lounge

  • Default (everyone): you can edit your replies for 5 minutes. We can keep this under review.
  • Thread opener: the normal forum rules above apply.

Established criteria: Forum account at least 6 months old, with 100 posts total (threads and replies).

Comments

  • BriblossomBriblossom

    I'm happy to see this change, thank you!

  • BellaAineBellaAine

    This is awesome! Thank you for making this change. It will help prevent a lot of confusion and reduce misunderstandings moving forward.

  • SunsetSnugglesSunsetSnuggles

    The thread that mainly instigated this had its opening post wiped within 24 hours, so this would not be a solution...

    Most edits happen in the heat of immature arguments, which means within a day of posting, if not within the hour.

    Is there even a positive aspect to editing most posts? Maybe people need to learn to think before they speak and be held accountable for what they say.

    ~ Sunset Snuggles

    🫂 Enthusiast 🏞 Travel Junkie 📷 Shutter Bug

  • MarkMark Mod
    edited July 30

    They actually wiped it 70 hours later.

    Nevertheless, this isn't really designed to address any specific case but yes that thread did bring this to my attention.

  • IronicMaidenIronicMaiden

    The first edit was making it more readable, which was good.

    The second edit (that I know of), they completely changed it to a different rant, and provided a bunch of irrelevant links.

    The third edit they wiped it.

  • KrishaKrisha

    @SunsetSnuggles These immature arguments are the biggest problem on here. People who don't wanna read all that BS should have the possibility to mute (or block) others on the forums. That way there'll be much more peace.

    @Mark Please seriously take this into consideration.

  • SunsetSnugglesSunsetSnuggles
    edited July 30

    If people had to stand by what they say, we would likely have a lot less drama and a lot more bans.

    @Krisha
    That would be lovely. Unfortunately, I believe it's been said in the past that it would make threads nonsensical. But you can still request it here.

    ~ Sunset Snuggles

    P.S. Editing a typo, because I'm a hypocrite. 😁

    🫂 Enthusiast 🏞 Travel Junkie 📷 Shutter Bug

  • mauvefoxmauvefox

    I love the change. It won’t prevent every issue but I do think it makes sense to have a small edit window to edit typos or make something more readable.

  • KrishaKrisha

    @SunsetSnuggles 🤣🤣🤣

  • cuddlefaerycuddlefaery

    Not being able to see the posts/comments of people you block I think is a small trade-off. If you block someone, you would just know it's the price to pay for the peace of mind of not being forced to interact with someone you put a hard boundary on. Similarly, it would be a huge safety improvement to protect people from being stalked by those they block.

  • IronicMaidenIronicMaiden

    And sometimes, not being able to see someone would make the conversation more coherent.

  • MarkMark Mod
    edited July 30

    If you block someone, you would just know it's the price to pay for the peace of mind of not being forced to interact with someone you put a hard boundary on.

    That's the optimal outcome. In my anecdotal experience of being a regular reader of another traditional style forum, the block feature caused more harm than good.

    In what was an otherwise mature environment, it ironically invited immaturity into threads because people couldn't resist using it to throw indirect jabs at those they dislike, such as "I've got him blocked so don't have to see his nonsense" and a thousand such variations in every other thread. Then you had the people that clearly were not keeping blocks on (i.e. curiosity keeps getting the better of them), those pretending to, or those doing so briefly just to make said jabs. Then you had the expected disruptions to threads due to people getting confused. And finally, blocks can't stop people from quoting others, as I have just done here.

    That's just anecdotal so I'm broadly open to it being a consideration but it shaped my feelings on it.

  • CSnMUS87CSnMUS87

    I do appreciate these changes. For myself I try to not edit my posts if I can. I usually only do so for 3 reasons:
    1. I made a typo or two and wanted to fix that.
    2. I wanted to add (not remove) something to it and sometimes I'll even type "Edit:" or "Update:" when adding to it.
    3. It was a link that wasn't displaying properly for some reason (as just happened to me when I was posting some educational YouTube videos in another thread. I had to try a few times and refresh youtube to get a working link to the video I was sharing due to the fact that the original URL had an underscore at the end of it.).

    I am all for these changes, because there have been times where I've been late to a thread and just see a bunch of edited posts, often changed to "." and I'm so confused as to what went on.