I can see both sides of this. I always use the “preview” function but nevertheless mistakes get through. I often find myself in a race against the clock to fix typos and such. On rare occasions, if the board is performing well, I might even be able to rewrite a sentence for better clarity.
OTOH, long edit windows are subject to abuse and I’ve seen it abused on other boards, albeit rarely. Plus you have the fact that board performance is erratic and even a longish edit window may not be long enough, or conversely the board may be performing well and a long edit window would inadvertently allow for substantive changes to a post after the fact.
Someone can correct me if I’m wrong but ISTM that the unstated principle here is that the board culture is one that places a high value on accountability. If you said something, you own it, and with rare exceptions it stays on the public record even if it’s offensive enough to earn a warning. I’m sure that changing the edit timeout is technically trivial, but IMHO I think this is the real reason all these requests are getting pushback.
I know it’s an outlier but you have to allow for the vindictive shithead. With an unlimited edit, you’ll eventually get someone who’ll get pissed off and either erase all his old posts, edit in porn links or make page breaking formatting. Who cares? Depends.
Yup. And it’s not necessarily that some people are on one side and some on the other. I think both issues are important. On the one hand, I want posts to be in accord with the poster’s intentions, so the conversation is not sidetracked and muddled by the inadvertent omission of a vital “NOT” or something. On the other hand, people should be accountable, and should not be allowed to alter what they actually did say 15 minutes later just because they have reconsidered.
If there were no technical issues with the board, the ideal compromise would be a 1 or 2 minute edit window. People should generally be using “Preview” to proofread before posting, and a short window would just allow you a second opportunity to correct any glaring error like omitting a “NOT” (something I know I do with regularity) that completely distorts the intent of your post.
(I know I advocated 8 minutes above, but that’s only because of the - hopefully temporary - technical problems, with “Preview” hanging just like everything else.)
On the other board I use most often, it’s not uncommon for someone to quit the board and ask the administrator to change all their old posts to “posted by anon”. It’s a little disconcerting to read a thread where people are replying to “Joe” but there are no posts by Joe. But it’s not really a big deal.
You’re mixing a side debate about whether edit limits are good or bad with the main question which was just about extending the edit time due to specific circumstances.
Chronos gave the answer to the OP: changing the edit timeout is more likely to make the board’s problem worse.
You also gave good advice, but I’d like to propose an amendment:
Rather than ask the mods to edit your post, go ahead and post a second post, with your edits obviously indicated. Then ask the mods to delete the first post. This gets around the issue of the mods not being able to edit your post right away.
Even before the board problems, this sort of thing would still occasionally happen, and people were good to ignore the first post in favor of the second.
An alternative I don’t need to propose is just to add your edit as a second post, with no need to delete the first. This works fine in any situation whee most of the edit is additions and not deletions or replacements. This is what I’ve always done.
I’d be satisfied with “I’m a moderator and I don’t want to make the change because…” followed by some brilliant argument I’d never considered. Is lengthening the edit window costly or burdensome to a degree that I am not aware? That would also be a satisfactory argument.
Preview Post is a wonderful feature, but if I don’t see my own error in the original composition, I probably won’t catch it there in time either.
Arguments along the line of “We used to have NO edit window and THAT’S THE WAY WE LIKED IT!” really don’t resonate with me, however elegantly phrased. That has been offered.
This speaks to usability problems when editing, but does not appear to me to be an assertion that increasing the edit window would worsen the board’s problems.
I haven’t seen any mods explain either why the edit window can’t be extended or why it wouldn’t be a good idea. All we have is this:
…which, given the lack of any substantial answer to the OP’s question, strikes me as uncharacteristically unhelpful and verging on rude. I would like to think the mods are capable of a more reasoned response than “like it or lump it.”
It can be extended. It’s just a setting. I’m pretty sure it’s a setting that tubadiva controls.
TPTB have chosen an extremely short edit window because they like it that way. I mean, I think it would be a good idea to extend it, but that’s just my opinion. Others have said they don’t like it when posts are edited, because then all the posts about how “what you said doesn’t make sense” (or whatever) don’t make sense to a later reader. That’s also an opinion. I don’t think there’s an objective answer to “what’s the best edit window?”, I think it’s one of those things that has plusses and minuses, and different people will have different opinions.
I have not seen any major problems with edits on boards that allow it. Yeah, I’ve seen people delete all their posts – but that wasn’t perceived as a problem by the other posters. Here I think it would upset people. I’ve never seen anyone insert porn links in all their old posts. (why not just make a lot of new posts to porn links, if that’s how you want to lash out? Maybe there’s some reason I haven’t thought of. It’s not a problem I’ve ever encountered.)
I think a lot of the old-time posters here like the idea that what’s been written here is inviolable. And that’s why editing posts feels like cheating, or disturbing the nature of the board.
Just to be clear, what exactly do you mean by “more problems”?
Are you saying that it will increase timeouts and server errors? If so, please explain. I don’t see how that would happen.
Or, are you saying that there is a potential for abuse? Somebody might try to backtrack, alter their post and deny they ever said it? If that’s what you’re saying, I don’t see there’s much chance of it happening within a 10 minute window. It can happen, but it’s not likely, and not often. And if it does, then it would count as ‘being a jerk’ and you can issue a warning.
And you keep saying "Report the posts and they’ll be fixed. " but there are two big problems with that.
historically, the mods have taken the attitude that they won’t correct any errors other than formatting. Even if this has changed, I’m so used to the old ways that I just wouldn’t think of asking them.
Even if the mods agree to the change, it might take 2 days to spot and respond to the request.
You know what else didn’t have an edit window? My first (manual, not electric) typewriter. I like to think this board is in the spirit of moving us towards warp drive and holodecks, but apparently not.
Knowing human nature, a significantly increased edit time would only encourage people to be less careful and thorough in their original posts. Though I hate to admit it, I would be much more careful if we had NO editing time because I know I would have no margin of error. I’ve developed a methodology that fits in the 5-minute window.
To be clear, I did not see this when I posted #51. Unfortunately, like the previous answers from e_c_g and other mods, it is not incredibly informative or helpful (and is a tad defensive), and I join Peter Morris in respectfully requesting additional details about the problems extending the window would create.
If the answer is, “We don’t know exactly what problems it might cause, but we have enough to do already without possibly opening another can of worms,” I think most of us would understand the impulse and accept that answer. As it is, the reluctance to give a straightforward answer to what seems a simple question provokes more questions and suspicions.
(Bolding mine.) This paragraph is spot-on—that’s exactly why the edit window isn’t likely to change. The tradition here is that you’re forever stuck with whatever you’ve posted, and even allowing a minimal opportunity for revision is a huge concession.
Reddit allows you to edit your posts indefinitely, and of course we always hear about politicians and celebrities deleting their embarrassing tweets. Somehow those things haven’t resulted in the downfall of civilization. But I suspect most Dopers would argue that we should strive to be the diametrical opposite of Reddit and Twitter.
Personally, I would be happier if we could drop the habit of mocking people for typos in their posts. I get that a lot of Dopers consider themselves comedy geniuses, but honestly, pointing out a dropped or misspelled word ain’t that funny.
I think that our Mod (and other old timers) is hearkening back to the days lo these many years ago, when debates in GD were serious things, with dozens of contributors, and someone who would post something in haste, others would jump on it triumphantly and thus the ability to edit out that post might have been detrimental.
But actually- no. Since that post would be quoted.
So yeah, this could happen. And my reply is so?
Not to mention those days are gone.
