We have a five minute period to edit out posts so we can correct in case of formatring errors, or if we miss out a vital word or two. Up until now, that has been a reasonable amount of time. But with all the timeouts and server errors lately, I think it is no longer long enough. It can sometimes take several minutes before a post is even visible, by which time the period may have expired.
Could we please, as a temporary measure, increase the time allowed for editing? I think it should be extended to 15 minutes, or 10 at the very least.
I agree with a modest increase to allow us to have a better chance of catching it when we completely screwed up a post, but I think 15 is too long, because in an active thread it’s confusing if somebody significantly changes a post after you’ve replied to it. I’d vote for maybe 8 minutes.
I’m a member of more than a few boards. Some of them have no limit. The other ones are long enough that I don’t know what the limit is. It have never been a problem that I can see. If your interlocutor is untrustworthy, quote 'em.
Five minutes is unnecessarily restrictive. That it’s the way it always was is not a reason to keep it that way.
This has come up from time to time as we have suffered through all of the timeouts etc.
As has been said in previous threads (many times), if you get bit by the timeout bug or any other server problem, just report the post or send us a PM and be sure to send us exactly what you want the text to be corrected to so that all we have to do is copy and paste. We aren’t going to re-write your posts for you. You need to tell us exactly what you want it to say.
That’s not much help for those who access the SDMB from a phone or a tablet.
But again, we already have a solution for this that has been in place for quite some time. We have been saying for months that if you experience any server issues (timeouts, errors, whatever), just contact us via PM or report the post and tell us exactly how you would like us to fix the post, and we’ll fix it for you.
If I realize after I post that my phone picked up a “now” when I meant “not” (an unfortunately common problem) and it completely changes the meaning, I might do that. I’m not going to bug the mods because I misspelled “there” or left out a couple words you can guess, or any number of other petty little mistakes that are annoying to read and embarrassing to have posted, but, you know, not worth making someone else clean up after me.
So this will continue to be an annoyance to me, both in my own posts, and in reading other people’s posts (because I assume I’m not the only one who runs into these issues.) Not an earth-shattering annoyance or anything. But I post on a lot of other boards, all of which allow edits, and it just isn’t a problem. So ti seems odd that it’s such a huge issue here.
Some of these replies have a “It’s not a problem for me, so we don’t need to fix it” vibe to them. Let me add my voice to the “It’s a problem for me” camp.
What is the nature of the mods’ resistance to a longer edit window? Is it burdensome for them somehow? Do they see the problem as a character weakness instead of a glitch with devices that have hair-trigger autocorrect? What is the reasoning?
But that goes against experience. The moderators have always taken the attitude that members are responsible for what they write. Oh, they will fix formatting errors, such as messing up spoiler tags. But if you write the wrong word, you’re on your own. If you accidentally omit the word ‘not’ from a post, giving the opposite meaning to what you intended, the mods generally won’t do anything about it. There has been a time or two when I’ve asked for a correction like that, and got no response at all.
Has this policy changed?
Normally, a five minute period allows for minor corrections like that. But with the current problems, it may not be enough. I could ask the mods for a correction, but I’m not confidant that they will help.
One further problem. The mods aren’t on duty 24/7. There’s plenty of times when they are all asleep or at work. If I report a problem, sometimes it takes a day and a half before any mod even gets the message.
Our policy hasn’t really changed, but, if you try to make an edit and you end up with some sort of server error, that’s a server problem and not a user posting problem.
We don’t want to punish you for server errors, so if you get a server error of some sort and that prevents you from editing your post within the 5 minute window, then we will fix it for you.
This happens all the time on message boards that allow editing. Just happened last week on another message board I read. One of the people that responded called them out on it but by that point the original post was lost and the whole thread didn’t make much sense any more.
Two problems with that. First of all, it could be a day and a half before you see and respond to my request.
Second, it’s open to abuse. I could tell you that I composed my post in MS Word, then cut and pasted. But owing to a paste error I missed four paragraphs. Please insert these four paragraphs in my post for me. I would have corrected it, but it timed out. Would you then do that? How would you know to trust me or not?
Edit- and there are legitimate uses for unlimited editing. People might want to have a thread full of suggestions from members on a particular subject. The first few posts index all the best suggestions submitted, and are updated frequently by the OP. It’s a shame we can’t do it here.
Oh, people definitely change their posts on boards that allow it. Sometimes that’s good. “I asked for advice growing a plant, but neglected to include my climate zone. Oops, fixed, a day later, after someone pointed that out.” Sometimes it’s bad. “You said something really wrong, and now you’ve edited it to be plausibly deniable.” But it’s not a major problem. On boards that allow unlimited editing, posters get into the habit of quoting posts that they want to rip into. And posters who do that more than rarely get a well-earned reputation.