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To Edit or Not To Edit, That Is the Question

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Eruname
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Posted: Mon 08 Aug , 2005 3:34 pm
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I just deleted a bit of my post in the business forum. I looked over it and saw there weren't any typos, made sure I wasn't rude, so I hit send. A few minutes later I realized the first sentence made me look kind of stupid so I deleted it. :P

While I can see the merits of this idea, I'm not comfortable with it.

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Axordil
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Posted: Mon 08 Aug , 2005 3:36 pm
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Eruname--

Was it a vote discussion thread?


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Eruname
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Posted: Mon 08 Aug , 2005 3:38 pm
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Nope! :D

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Axordil
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Posted: Mon 08 Aug , 2005 3:43 pm
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Then it wouldn't matter to me. :D


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truehobbit
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Posted: Mon 08 Aug , 2005 3:55 pm
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Axordil wrote:
As Alatar notes, hobby, there's always the Preview button. Which I am guilty of not using nearly as much as I should, to be honest.
I sometimes use it, when I'm posting in a difficult discussion and I want to make sure that I'm not saying anything offensive (if possible ;) ) before someone sees it - you get more of an overview in Preview than in the reply window.
Normally I re-read my post in the reply window.

Still, I edit most posts, I think, usually the second after posting - there are always afterthoughts, a word seemingly not saying what I thought it said when seen in the finished post.

Yes, preview might prevent a few edits, but by far not all.

Most of my edits are additions. I post, and find that someone has posted while I was typing, so I want to add something with reference to the new input.
I don't like to make several posts in a row. Making separate posts to answer different people, that's spamming, I think.
I've been guilty of making several posts in a row, too, of course, but mostly only when I felt I had to in order to make the new point comprehensible or noticeable at all.

This goes especially for business forum discussions! I take a long time writing these, so people post in between. When the discussion is very quick, I sometimes give up and make a new post, rather than edit, not caring whether it results in two posts in a row.
Compare above, though: I wanted to comment on Fixer but forgot, but it would have been spamming, IMO, to make a new post for that comment.

(Edit: half a sentence in the last paragraph of this post has been edited, too, for clarity - I found that my first version didn't say what I thought it should say - I don't think I could post without editing.)

And now I'm even editing after Prim posted! :D
I noticed that I got something wrong, and that would cause confusion if I couldn't edit - I'd have to make another post explaining.

Last edited by truehobbit on Mon 08 Aug , 2005 4:01 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Primula_Baggins
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Posted: Mon 08 Aug , 2005 3:59 pm
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I have to say I'm not comfortable with the idea either. I can see it in something like a hearing, where people might be tempted to change their testimony if someone else's statement reminds them of something, say. But only in cases like that where something important such as a banning is on the line, and people's posts are evidence used in the decision.

For day-to-day chit chat, or serious discussion, or even argument, editing is a privilege that people count on having, and I see no compelling reason, such as frequent abuse, to limit that privilege.

Oh, and I'm wrong about being able to adjust editing privileges by group. It can only be done on an individual basis or at the forum level (except that there is no way to prevent Rangers from editing).

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truehobbit
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Posted: Mon 08 Aug , 2005 4:04 pm
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The nice thing is that editing shows after another post has been made - so I don't think there's much danger of people changing a post in a hearing at a later point! :)

Or rather, if they did, they could not pretend their post wasn't edited!

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Frelga
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Posted: Mon 08 Aug , 2005 4:05 pm
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I would be very much opposed to any limits on edit rights. This strikes me as the sort of obsessive rulemaking that inconveniences the majority of perfectly honest and well-intentioned people in a futile attempt to stop a hypothetical miscreant.

From what I’ve seen, the members here are extremely circumspect in their use of editing. Most of us clearly mark the edits done to the posts. Even in the “official” threads it is sometimes convenient to go back and say “ETA: Let me clarify that…” or “ETA: sorry, didn’t see Someposter’s message before I replied” or even “ETA: Oh, Soandso just said exactly what I meant only better” Sure, one could add the clarification to a later post, but then inevitably someone is going to push that Reply button right after reading the unclarified original.

Keep in mind, too, that when a thread is moving fast, sometimes there are three or four posts from the time I start typing and the time post appears. Those posts could really change the message that I’m trying to convey.

ETA: three posts while I was typing!

Last edited by Frelga on Mon 08 Aug , 2005 4:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Axordil
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Posted: Mon 08 Aug , 2005 4:08 pm
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Hobby--
Quote:
I post, and find that someone has posted while I was typing, so I want to add something with reference to the new input.
See, I actually find that confusing. Even when I do it. :)
Quote:
Making separate posts to answer different people, that's spamming, I think.
Really this is a matter of taste. It's no better nor worse than a huge omnibus post that answers everyone, IMO. Sometimes I do one, sometimes the other.

I do think we should perhaps bear in mind that English is not the first language of everyone here...

Prim--Well, that scotches the B-room idea. That would only leave:

The Outside Forums (where things are official or nearly so)
Michel Delving (ditto, and a record-keeping forum really shouldn't be too flexible)
The Ranger Admin forum
Archival/historical forums (which should be read-only anyway, no?)


on my list.

Ranger people:
Is it possible to keep the option for editing within the first few minutes after a post (the ones that don't show up as edits) while disallowing the ones that do?


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Primula_Baggins
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Posted: Mon 08 Aug , 2005 4:12 pm
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No, Ax—you can edit, or you can not edit. There's no middle ground.

Very un-b77ish.

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Voronwë_the_Faithful
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Posted: Mon 08 Aug , 2005 4:27 pm
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Speaking philosophically, I would be against any rule or action that limited individual's right to edit their own posts at any time.

To use as an example, there is a thread about which much discussion has taken place. In this thread a couple of people took the extreme action of completely deleting all of their posts, effectively emasculating the thread of any real value as a discussion among adults. I disagree with these individuals decision to take the action that they did, but I understand why they did it, and I completely support each individual's right to make that kind of decision for themselve.

I seriously doubt that we will ever have an editing situation more extreme then that one. And you know what, the institution will survive that action with no long-term damage. It will survive any future decision by individuals as well. And if it doesn't, then it wasn't meant to be.


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Axordil
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Posted: Mon 08 Aug , 2005 4:34 pm
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Voronwe, what is to prevent people from editing their own posts in a Jury Room deliberation, not just to rewrite history, as it were, but destroy evidence?


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Voronwë_the_Faithful
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Posted: Mon 08 Aug , 2005 4:42 pm
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Two things: conscience, and the diligence of fellow posters. Its very rare that a major edit goes undetected by someone else. That is not to say that someone might not get away with something sometime. But that is the price to pay for not throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

I should amend my statement though because I do agree with having the the threads of historical interest forum be read only. So any thread that is moved in there (as the wilko thread probably should have been in the first place, along with all of the other controversial threads that describe the history of why we have set up such elaborate governance procedures) would be protected for the good of the community.


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TORN
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Posted: Mon 08 Aug , 2005 5:05 pm
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Frelga wrote:
. . . ETA . . . ETA . . . ETA . . . ETA . .
SO, FRELGA, WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU ARRIVING AND WHEN THE HELL ARE YOU ACTUALLY THINKING YOU MIGHT ARRIVE THERE???

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TORN
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Posted: Mon 08 Aug , 2005 5:09 pm
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Oh, btw, I agree completely with V (well, at least his last two posts, assuming he doesn't sneak back in to edit them to say something that I completely disagree with, in which case I would disagree completely with V).


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Frelga
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Posted: Mon 08 Aug , 2005 5:27 pm
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TORN wrote:
Frelga wrote:
. . . ETA . . . ETA . . . ETA . . . ETA . .
SO, FRELGA, WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU ARRIVING AND WHEN THE HELL ARE YOU ACTUALLY THINKING YOU MIGHT ARRIVE THERE???

SIGNED,

NIESZCZĘSNY MIEJSCOWY STRACHAJŁO
There's no there there, TORN.

Wherever you go, there you are.

It's not the destination, it's the journey.

What can I say, ETA is ambigous, but so much shorter than typing out "Edited to Add:" I could go back and edit my post, though. :whistle:

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Fixer
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Posted: Mon 08 Aug , 2005 5:43 pm
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Axordil wrote:
Quote:
Making separate posts to answer different people, that's spamming, I think.
Really this is a matter of taste. It's no better nor worse than a huge omnibus post that answers everyone, IMO. Sometimes I do one, sometimes the other.
There *IS* a phpbb forum edit that autojoins consecutive posts by an individual user. If I was to post three times in a single thread and no one else posted between my posts, they would be joined into one post automatically by the board.

That being said, I am still against removal of edit rights to one's own posts. There have been times on message boards in the past when I typed something and people would ask me, "Did you mean to say...." and I realized I had missed a qualifier or something that made my statements say something quite different than I intended. At that point I would go back and edit my original post and then make a new one specifying what I had editted so that people would know I had made a mistake and wanted to clarify matters.

We are all human, we all make mistakes from time to time. There are people who will abuse this right, just as there will ALWAYS be SOMEONE who wants to abuse a right. All that will be required for everyone involved is to know they should quote someone when they believe that individual might edit their post to change the flow of the conversation. In any event, this is all words on the Internet anyway, so try not to take it too much to heart anyway. We are losing over 90% of our communication already without body language, so there are always going to be misunderstandings.

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Anthriel
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Posted: Mon 08 Aug , 2005 8:14 pm
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I must add:

If I didn't know that the lot of you were such MAJOR English grammar geeks, I wouldn't have to go back and edit when I have overused certain words in a paragraph or gotten too wordy with qualifiers, or other such grammatical embarrassments.

I use preview, will often compose long posts in Word, and STILL end up going back to edit stuff. Because some things I never seem to see until time has passed...


But I'm just twitchy.



<twitch>

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Primula_Baggins
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Posted: Mon 08 Aug , 2005 8:19 pm
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What, Anth, you mean people like me make it hard for you to RELAX???!!!?????

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Anthriel
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Posted: Mon 08 Aug , 2005 8:24 pm
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