Edit window suggestions to improve the forum experience and value

MRC Support
1

I would like to suggest a change to the time/conditions limits on editing one’s own posts in the discussion forums here.

It looks like there is currently no time limit on the window within which a poster (of thread starters or replies) can edit their own posts. This ability to edit seems to include erasure of an entire post, and editing of the thread title.

There also seems to be no limit on editing one’s own post even after other forum users have replied to the post or reacted to the post.

These unlimited edits are problematic.

Such edits can cause a reaction to be appended to a post that the original reactor did not and possibly would not react to; if you post ‘leos are the best starter reptile’ and I react positively to that, but you subsequently change your post to read ‘leos are the worst starter reptile’, your edit has forced me to react in a way that was not my intent.

Similarly, such edits can make replies to the original content seem off-base or non-sensical. This can make repliers look incorrect or just plain dumb in ways that those repliers don’t deserve. There is some ability for repliers to quote content they’re replying to, but this both gets a little silly sometimes and also it seems that the forum software doesn’t allow for quotes of entire posts.

Edits that remove large blocks of content, well, remove large blocks of content from the forum archives. Archived discussions are valuable – more so the longer they’re viewable, since there are many more eyes on the content over time. The idea of public discussions is that they’re public; deleting their central content makes them effectively private.

Edits that remove or fundamentally change content indicate that the original post was not made in good faith. There’s a lot to unpack in this observation, and I’m happy to try to elaborate, but I think the idea that deleting content simply because it has ceased to be useful to the person who posted it has a scent of fraudulence to it.

I suggest that self-edits on one’s own posts have a limited time window in which they can be undertaken. Some time period that enables proofreading of a post, and subsequent corrections for grammar/spelling/clarity, is valuable. If edit window is based on time, I suggest 30 minutes after the post was submitted.

Alternately, allowing self edits for any period of time up until the post is replied to (directly, not just another reply to the thread) or reacted to would be another option that eliminates or at least greatly reduces the problems with unlimited self-edit windows.

Edits that are desired outside these limits could of course be made by the moderators by request of the poster. This would of course potentially add to the work load of moderators, but my own experience moderating indicates that these requests are exceedingly rare.

2

This seems like something that should fall more into the realm of forum etiquette rather than forum design. It’s deeply irritating when someone changes the meat of their post when others have already replied, but no material harm is rendered: moreover, anyone can rescind their likes to a post or edit their own responses if there is great concern about seeming to endorse an edited post. And let’s be dead honest: we have many wonderful experts amongst our ranks, but this is a casual space, not an official one, and while I agree that internet archiving of good information is deeply important, it is not our resident experts who are pulling the abovementioned shenangians.

Cases where someone completely changes their post are incredibly rare, and the loss of ongoing edit privileges for the whole forum’s population is a pretty extreme response to, frankly, something that is not a major problem. There’s already a visual indicator when someone edits their post after a certain window. Let me catch my typos two days after I make a post, or be able to add an addendum if I have to correct bad information a month later. That’s a QoL thing I value more than the disappearing words of someone (presumably) acting in bad faith.

3

I think a hard deadline of say 1 or 2 weeks is handy. As community support there have been some cases of people coming back and wanting their posts removed later. For archiving, we can lock, hide and unlist them. There have been some cases where the user just edited all their messages away anyway :person_shrugging:

The edits are available for mods to see.
The general user ability was removed a while back and I don’t quite recall when. Users used to be able to see what was edited.
I don’t know if it’s a good idea to bring that back … Or leave it at a mod’s discretion to reverse the editing.

I did actually leave a private note on one of the posts recently if any other mods popped in to read it. I don’t have the seniority to make decisions of that matter and reverse the edit.

4

That would help, though not entirely. I assume general web searches wouldn’t be able to see the pre-edit content, for example, and the ability to find content with such a search isn’t negligible in value.

5

[quote=“socraticmonologue, post:1, topic:64139”]

There also seems to be no limit on editing one’s own post even after other forum users have replied to the post or reacted to the post.

[/quote]

I believe it would be wise to lock the post from being edited after the first like or response without a like to said post. I edit a lot of my posts for grammar errors because I get in too much of a rush to reply before proofreading….

This way it will make me slow down and proofread. The only exception would be if a post was flagged. In that case the op could be given the chance to edit the post or just delete it.

6

Yes, I’m sympathetic to the need for that, and if possible it should be accommodated. Some solution that allows for this and at the same time minimizes disruptive edits would be ideal.

7

That’s a criterion on which very many forum rules do not depend in the least.

Without an alert that a post to which I have reacted or replied has been edited, this is for all practical purposes entirely unrealistic. And of course such an alert feature would be intrusive.

I didn’t claim that “good” information was the issue, and it is certain that we don’t have a way to make that judgement in any way except tentatively and subject to further evidence*. Often, the claims that look incorrect in the moment are the ones most worth preserving, and not infrequently the “experts” turn out to be mistaken (or worse).

*though the thought that we could someday find evidence to show that we actually hadn’t needed further evidence for such judgments is intriguing.

8

It might be worth looking to the existing forum Guidelines for, well, guidance on whether the sorts of edits that are under discussion are consistent with current expectations. There’s some relevant points there:

https://community.morphmarket.com/guidelines

“The conversations we have here set the tone for every new arrival.” The more posts that are deleted or substantively altered on the heels of helpful replies, the less likely a person might want to contribute; why help someone if they’re going to pretend they never wanted help anyway?

“This is a public forum, and search engines index and store these discussions indefinitely.” The value of public archives.

“Don’t divert a topic by changing it midstream.” Like this: [quote=“thechamcollector, post:21, topic:64117”]
I’m trying to it make a completely different concept
[/quote]

9

The problem with being able to see edits again also leaves the sometimes very rude comments users had made before changing it.

It can keep the hostility in a situation going if the other user isn’t cool headed enough.

I do appreciate the 5 or so minute grace period we have to do a quick grammer or spelling change.
Maybe even just leaving it as an hour or something before locking edits down without mod intervention would be cool.

10

If we’re arguing criterion that forum laws depend on, archival quality is also not one, nor is the mods concerning themselves with the potential abstract reputation dings one might accrue from seeming to agree with some bonkers ex post facto edit to a post.

Sure! My point here is more that if this edge case does not cause enough concern to call for an alert when someone edits a post you replied to, I don’t think it matters enough to change a basic forum function either.

This gave me a grin. Wouldn’t that be a fun semantic spiral to fall down.

While I see your points in an abstract sense, I am deeply opposed, on a personal and philosophical level, to the further erosion of our (already tenuous, considering the state of the internet as it is in 2026) ability to have some agency over our digital footprints in exchange for any of the benefits you’re suggesting locking edits would offer.

This is the difference, I think, between law and custom (inasmuch as forum rules are not laws, every forum is functionally a petit dictateuriat – which as someone who spent many years on classic forums I do say with some wry fondness – and restricting a basic function of the forum is changing the functional “laws” of a forum). Making it clear that editing the meaning of your post is tasteless, tacky, underhanded and/or deceptive is something I wholeheartedly endorse, up to and including mod judgment calls on reversing edits that are especially misleading or outright malicious. Codifying it seems unnecessarily draconian for, again, a context that by-and-large doesn’t have the kind of archival value that would justify it, nor the kind of serious consequences that would warrant it, nor even the frequency of occurrence to suggest it is a problem that currently needs solving. If the issue were rampant, my tune might change, but unless I’m missing a lot, it’s not. I’ve basically seen the one instance.

Again, I say this all as someone who grew up in the burgeoning online forum era. I miss it. I am sad a lot of the forums of old have been entirely lost, but if I am being just brutally honest, very, very few of them would be useful for anything outside of personal nostalgia. Certainly none important enough that I’d have given up the ability to edit posts during the active days of the forum.

11

I’m not seeing the connection with semantics. On the face of it, it is a simple self-referential contradiction; the deeper issues lie in metaepistemology. A pedantic criticism of a friendly comment, I realize. :wink:

This is more troubling. Agency involves doing (writing, saying, etc) something that has one’s own stamp of approval on it – as opposed to something a person does without agency and so can rightfully claim ‘that wasn’t me doing that, exactly’. I can do something of my own agency and regret it (‘I apologize and take full ownership for the harm caused’), or correct it (‘what I said back there was incorrect, and here’s how I should have said it’) but not erase it and replace it with something else or with nothing. Edits after an action (words, etc) have been loosed into the world are a denial of agency, not an act supporting it.

While I don’t think that expecting – demanding, really – that people take ownership of their actions (words, etc) is draconian (in fact, respect for a person as a person would demand that we do no less), I can agree with you on the rest. I agree that there’s definitely a baby/bathwater situation here (which I take you to be essentially saying in the bit I quoted).

So let’s see how this works. I’m going to flag the one egregious example that was mentioned above (topic change) and see if the existing non-draconian rules are up to the task. I hope they do, and then we can all go back to talking about herps. :slight_smile: (That last sentence was an edit :wink: )

t_h_wyman 12

So… As a follow-on

I read through this yesterday and I agree that the editing of a post to completely annihilate everything it was and turn it into something entirely different is problematic. I feel like John was very on the nose with the ‘Ministry of Truth’ analogy. I understand the argument of letting people have their own agency, but part of having that agency means also being responsible for your agency and owning your own feces. If you can just “disappear” anything you want at any time you want and act like it never happened… That does not play well with a community. And the ultimate goal here is to have a healthy community

As such… I spoke with Admin level and they agreed that there should be a limit on how long regular members can edit their posts. Changes have been made to that effect. Mods and Admin still have universal edit rights and can, if needed, make justifiable edits to any post for a user. This can be accomplished by a simple DM or a user self-flagging their post

3 Likes
13

So if we don’t proofread before replying we need to contact admin to make grammatical errors. Correct? Or do we regulars have a window of opportunity? I just want to be clear. This is great improvement!

14

Though I’m certain the moderating team knows the details, they may not want to give precise timing on this. I can report that a post I made seven hours ago is still editable by me; that seems plenty long for a proofread or fourteen. :slight_smile:

15

Yup! I would think! :wink::+1: