Some boards do allow this, and can indicate when the post was edited. So, why not allow a member in good standing with SD edit his/her post?
Mods – amongst the 63 kajillion stickies at the top of this forum, could you add one entitled “why the SDMB doesn’t allow editing”?
Jinx – short answer, to keep people honest. If editing were allowed, someone could say something in a post, have people respond to it, and then go back and change the post, in order to claim “that’s not what I said.”
If you want another look at the real version of the post before you commit, use the “preview” button.
On the other hand, many of us have begged for a 5 or 10 minute grace period, where we could edit out posts.
Hit Preview, board locks up. Come back five minutes later and hit submit and then discover the horrible mistakes made in typing. I do not expect we will ever get the editing ability, but it would be wonderful.
Jim
With the disputational nature of this community abuse is most likely. Might as well ask why you can’t post graphics; we used to allow that as well. Used to allow html. All lost due to abuse – by minority, to be sure, but abuse nonetheless.
We have our hands full handling what comes in the course of everyday posting, we’re not comfortable with the idea of opening the door to tons more work cleaning up behind the fistfights all these things would bring. Sorry.
This is one SDMB policy with which I’m in complete agreement.
For one thing, the board is slow enough as it is. I can’t possibly imagine the board speeding up because of a new post-editing feature.
Another reason is that the “permanence” of a posting forces you to express yourself precisely and clearly. I think postings would become poorly-worded, knowing that you could just go back and edit them.
One bad thing about “permanent postings” is that those nasty tpyos stay out on the 'Net for eternity. 
With the level of activity this board gets, no grace period would be short enough. I’ve even seen it happen that one of my posts got replied to before I even returned to the thread upon making it. We would need a negative grace period to deal with that.
And, actually, Chronos, we have just that. The grace period varies, but is generally several minutes before you hit the SUBMIT button.
Sidenote: I remember reading that this was pretty much the exact argument of educators when they started making pencils with erasers attached. They thought it would make students lazy.
I just wanted to share.
Now: carry on.
One assumes that there were erasers of some form before they were attached to the pencils. Were they against those also? I may be making a bad assumption.
They had them seperately, but thought that putting them together was just a little too easy. No, I don’t have a cite and I guess I ought to know better than posting cite-less by now.
You know what? I can’t actually find a cite now that I’ve looked, so I take it back.
Please ignore my hi-jack and continue with the OP.
It’s not totally analagous, but some sources I’ve read, and Wikipedia here, have said governments at first hesitated to issue parahutes to fighter pilots in World War I for fear it would encourage cowardice or desertion.
Sailboat
The RFC (forerunner of the RAF refused to issue parachutes to aircraft pilots during WWI because, well, aeroplanes were expensive and there was indeed a concern that pilots may very well bail out instead of fighting the enemy.
As odd as this sounds now, there was a reason for this concern, and it sort of makes sense when you take it in context.
Both sides during WWI made extensive use of observation ballons, which, being massive and full of hydrogen, tended to catch fire when hit with incendiary bullets.
Therefore, the balloon crews WERE issued with Parachutes (and had been since well before the War), and were under instructions to bail out as soon as an enemy plane was sighted- observation balloons were cheap, after all. The balloon was then winched down by the ground crew, and if the enemy fighter destroyed it before they could get it down the ground, that was just how it went.
Of course, if the pilots of the RFC’s aircraft took this attitude (went the conventional wisdom at the time), then they’d have pilots bailing out left, right, and centre rather than engaging the enemy, and that just wouldn’t do, so let’s not give them a parachute, just as a little extra incentive to, shall we say, give a good account of themselves.
What this actually led to (as we now know) was the loss of thousands of pilots (who would have survived if they could have bailed out), and as a result one of the vital pre-flight checks for any pilot during WWI was to ensure their service pistol was loaded and in working order- ostensibly so they could defend themselves if forced down behind enemy lines, but in reality so they had the option of shooting themselves instead of burning to death or being trapped in their plane as it spiralled out of control towards the ground, having been shot down or suffered a catastrophic mechanical failure.
In 1918, the Luftwaffe began issuing parachutes in limited numbers- Ernst Udet was saved by his parachute after being shot down in 1918, much to the surprise of the French pilot who shot him down and saw him jumping from his plane.
Anyway, where was I? Oh, yes, that’s right, I came in here to say I think that allowing a 1 minute grace period to edit a post would be a most welcome addition, but I can also see why it’s not enabled from a hardware capability point of view.
It’s only easy until you wear out that tiny little eraser. Then you have to go find one of the un-attached ones.
It’s already in a sticky:
FAQ - technical issues - please read this BEFORE posting a question
I suppose it could be made into a separate sticky all by itself, but then, you may have noticed that we have people complaining that there are Too many stickies.
“Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.” (Oscar Wilde)
Yes, the lack of an edit function can be troublesome.
It means that I have to think carefully before submitting a post, read it over and check for typos, weigh my words well, conscious that they will be indelible once posted.
Troublesome, but not necessarily a bad thing, if one thinks about it.
And if there had been a typo in my post above I would have been in real trouble.
Whew!
There is nothing in the world so unbecoming to a woman as a Nonconformist conscience. (Oscar Wilde).
Well Chronos, you’re just the guy to start working on that.