# Limits on Mods' ability to alter posts? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [March 29, 2010, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-on-mods-ability-to-alter-posts/534199 "2010-03-29T11:14:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 11:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-on-mods-ability-to-alter-posts/534199/1 "2010-03-29T11:14:21Z")
I accidentally pressed “Submit” instead of “Preview” on a post that wasn’t quite ready yet in GD, and when I asked a mod to fix it, **tomndebb** informed me that he wasn’t allowed to modify posts on user request, at least for my specific request. I’m just looking for clarification: Is it the extent of the changes that matters? The complexity? Or is this a new rule forbidding any changes by mods (which seems unlikely)? Tom deleted the erroneous post after sending me what was there in a PM. At first I thought I’d lost the coding, but when I pressed “Forward” on the PM the coding was there, which was very nice (well, I had to wait an hour or two until the “Database Errors” went away, as this was early Monday morning). I have no complaint about how Tom handled this situation in this case, which worked out okay in the end, but I’m just wondering if this relates to some rule I wasn’t familiar with or, as indicated above, it has to do with the complexity of the required changes? Please advise. ---
**Author:** ![running\_coach](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/running_coach/32/15836_2.png) [@running\_coach](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/running_coach)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-on-mods-ability-to-alter-posts/534199/2 "2010-03-29T12:33:43Z")
The only changes I’ve seen the mods make are: editing titles for clarity, breaking links, removing excess quoted material, removing personal contact info. The basic content as posted is left untouched. ---
**Author:** ![Santos\_L\_Halper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/santos_l_halper/32/1_2.png) [@Santos\_L\_Halper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Santos_L_Halper)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-on-mods-ability-to-alter-posts/534199/3 "2010-03-29T13:40:55Z")
There’s a period when you can edit a post after you’ve made it, assuming you realize you’ve made a mistake and can make the changes within five minutes. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-on-mods-ability-to-alter-posts/534199/4 "2010-03-29T14:00:45Z")
Generally speaking when a posting is made we tend not to interfere with the natural course of things unless there is good reason to step in. I cannot speak for what Tom did in your case – he’ll be better at that himself. If you miss the five minute edit window we can fix coding errors and similar types of problems and mostly we do. If you have reconsiderations about what you wrote and want it removed we tend to let things stay as they are. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-on-mods-ability-to-alter-posts/534199/5 "2010-03-29T14:06:42Z")
There is no technical limitation, but there’s a philosophical one. The edit window **Santos** refers to is there because editing of posts in an active thread makes it difficult to follow. People are responding to text that’s no longer there, or that’s phrased differently. It breaks the flow. Once you’ve said something, it becomes “published”; a part of the history of the board. If all you had to do was say, “hmmm. I didn’t say that right. I’ll have a mod change it,” it would be defeating the spirit of the edit window. It would also turn the mods into your personal secretaries and turn moderating the boards into drudgery. ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-on-mods-ability-to-alter-posts/534199/6 "2010-03-29T14:11:39Z")
If you make an incomplete post, and it’s too late to edit it, why not add a post to the thread saying something like, “Sorry, I hit Submit too soon. Here’s the rest of what I meant to say: …”? ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Barchetta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/da6949/32.png) [@Red\_Barchetta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Barchetta)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 2:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-on-mods-ability-to-alter-posts/534199/7 "2010-03-29T14:58:08Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:5, topic:534199”] If all you had to do was say, “hmmm. I didn’t say that right. I’ll have a mod change it,” it would be defeating the spirit of the edit window. It would also turn the mods into your personal secretaries and turn moderating the boards into drudgery. [/QUOTE] The spirit of the edit window? The one with the arbitrary 5-minute window, which in itself defied the original “publishing” spirit? I’m not entirely opposed to the current protocol, just pointing out that this line of reasoning is pretty nonsensical. ---
**Author:** ![Sapo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@Sapo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sapo)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-on-mods-ability-to-alter-posts/534199/8 "2010-03-29T15:26:53Z")
> [@Red\_Barchetta](#): > > The spirit of the edit window? The one with the arbitrary 5-minute window, which in itself defied the original “publishing” spirit? > > I’m not entirely opposed to the current protocol, just pointing out that this line of reasoning is pretty nonsensical. The window has to close at some point and it will always be arbitrary. And I don’t think it defies the spirit of the “published” thingamabob. It is a short window to correct embarrassing typos and other minor things, not to rethink the post. ETA: You don’t want to have a post changed after the poster has read responses to it. 5 minutes is short enough to accomplish that and long enough to allow a reread and fixing minor things (like adding this) ---
**Author:** ![Cat\_Whisperer](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cat_whisperer/32/4839_2.png) [@Cat\_Whisperer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cat_Whisperer)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-on-mods-ability-to-alter-posts/534199/9 "2010-03-29T18:23:27Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:5, topic:534199”] \ It would also turn the mods into your personal secretaries and turn moderating the boards into drudgery. [/QUOTE] Would you be a dear and run and fetch me some tea? 🙂 > [@Sapo](#): > > The window has to close at some point and it will always be arbitrary. And I don’t think it defies the spirit of the “published” thingamabob. It is a short window to correct embarrassing typos and other minor things, not to rethink the post.\ I don’t see anything wrong with the author re-thinking a post within the edit time-frame; sometimes you realize something is a bad idea as soon as you hit “submit.” I think the idea here is that the author is the ONLY person who can re-think a post. ---
**Author:** ![tim314](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tim314/32/3468_2.png) [@tim314](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tim314)\ **Post date:** [March 29, 2010, 6:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-on-mods-ability-to-alter-posts/534199/10 "2010-03-29T18:52:55Z")
> [@Cat\_Whisperer](#): > > I don’t see anything wrong with the author re-thinking a post within the edit time-frame; sometimes you realize something is a bad idea as soon as you hit “submit.” For what it’s worth, I think most posters here would be pretty understanding if someone followed an ill-advised post with an immediate reply of “Sorry, I just realized what I said was stupid” or something to that effect. What gets under people’s skin is when someone won’t admit they’re wrong even when they _so obviously are_.😉 ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 3:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-on-mods-ability-to-alter-posts/534199/11 "2010-03-30T03:17:54Z")
My apologies. I was attempting to handle **ambushed** ’s request in the manner that I thought would work best for him while following my understanding of the rules and a combination of real life distractions and bad keystrokes resulted in SNAFU. **Ambushed** ’s request was that a staff member tack a block of text (sent via PM) onto his post while deleting the end of the existing post. By my understanding of staff rules, that would have involved a lot of finger gepoking to his text that is outside what we are permitted to touch. I copied his original post onto Notepad, then deleted the original post and attempted to send it back to him via PM so that he could put all the text together in the manner he saw fit. However, I ran afoul of the 5,000(?) character limit on PMs, so I had to break it in two and ship it in separtate chunks. Somewhere in the turmoil, the second block got sent to me, instead of **ambushed** , and I had to forward it to him after I returned to my puter from my other tasks. All of the post should be in **ambushed** ’s PM boxes: the two sections of the original post in his inbox from me and the final section in his sent mail box to me. Since all the text that **ambushed** was asking me to touch originated from his keyboard. I will run it past the staff to see whether I was too cautious. (I will note that we really do not want to take on the roles of “post fixers”–partly for a lack of time and partly to avoid accusations that we changed something in text we were asked to fix. However, as a once in a great while request, I will let the staff argue the point to clarify our position.) ---
**Author:** ![Red\_Barchetta](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/da6949/32.png) [@Red\_Barchetta](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Red_Barchetta)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-on-mods-ability-to-alter-posts/534199/12 "2010-03-30T03:40:42Z")
> [@Sapo](#): > > The window has to close at some point and it will always be arbitrary. And I don’t think it defies the spirit of the “published” thingamabob. It is a short window to correct embarrassing typos and other minor things, not to rethink the post. IIRC, a lot of the hoopla over the instatement of the edit window at all was directly related to being able to modify posts after they’ve been responded to, hence my ‘defied spirit’ comment. ---
**Author:** ![Munch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/munch/32/5281_2.png) [@Munch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Munch)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 2:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-on-mods-ability-to-alter-posts/534199/13 "2010-03-30T14:03:27Z")
> [@tomndebb](#): > > (I will note that we really do not want to take on the roles of “post fixers”–partly for a lack of time and partly to avoid accusations that we changed something in text we were asked to fix. However, as a once in a great while request, I will let the staff argue the point to clarify our position.) Yeah - I think this is a really bad precedent to set up. There are some posters that are really obsessive about their posts to the point of never wanting to admit they were wrong - and I could see them dogging the mods to change posts in lieu of simply saying, “Whoops, here’s what I meant to say.” The thought of admitting an error is as horrifying to them as the thought of walking into my mother’s bridge club without any pants on is to me. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-on-mods-ability-to-alter-posts/534199/14 "2010-03-30T14:22:57Z")
**tomndebb** acted cautiously here and I probably would have done the same. **ambushed** asked one of us to edit the post about 15 minutes after it was submitted, which is not very long, but we have no way of knowing if someone is reading the post and responding at the time. He was asking us to add about 450 words to a post that was about 500 words when he submitted it by accident. If you hit submit by mistake, it’s better to hit Edit, copy all the text, change the post to ‘oops, hit submit too soon’ and finish the message before posting it separately. We’re willing to go back and fix things like coding errors that can make a post hard to read, but we’d rather keep our edits minor. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [March 30, 2010, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-on-mods-ability-to-alter-posts/534199/15 "2010-03-30T19:10:36Z")
I also want to echo the fact that it’s no big deal to finish a post after you’ve posted. And I’ve done the stupid thing a few times, and I’ve never caught flack from that I knew of (though, if I get emotional and say something controversial I have a tendency to avoid the thread for a bit, at least until I’ve cooled down. Sometimse this means I forget about the thread altogether, and I’m sure I miss stuff. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-on-mods-ability-to-alter-posts/534199/16 "2010-04-06T00:55:56Z")
As I said in my OP, I didn’t have a complaint. I just wanted clarification of the rules, a clarification that’s still unclear, but thanks to **Marley23** ’s Post #14, I have an answer as to what I should do if this happens again. Thanks to **TubaDiva** , **tomndebb** , and **Marley23**. The scolding from the excessive conformists to pretty much anyone who dare post in ATMB is quite tiresome, on the other hand. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 1:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-on-mods-ability-to-alter-posts/534199/17 "2010-04-06T01:00:56Z")
> [@Santos\_L\_Halper](#): > > There’s a period when you can edit a post after you’ve made it, assuming you realize you’ve made a mistake and can make the changes within five minutes. 🙂 Yes, I am aware of that. But no small amount of gobbledygook resulted from a bad cut and paste that clobbered my meaning was there to be fixed, and there was plenty of as-yet unchecked content to fix in the small amount of time left. It simply wasn’t possible. I’ll use **Marley23** ’s tip in the future. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-on-mods-ability-to-alter-posts/534199/18 "2010-04-06T01:16:58Z")
[quote=“Gary “Wombat” Robson, post:5, topic:534199”] There is no technical limitation, but there’s a philosophical one. The edit window **Santos** refers to is there because editing of posts in an active thread makes it difficult to follow. People are responding to text that’s no longer there, or that’s phrased differently. It breaks the flow. Once you’ve said something, it becomes “published”; a part of the history of the board. If all you had to do was say, “hmmm. I didn’t say that right. I’ll have a mod change it,” it would be defeating the spirit of the edit window. It would also turn the mods into your personal secretaries and turn moderating the boards into drudgery. [/QUOTE] Oh, jeez… “The Self-Important Philosophy of the Edit Window”? Was that Hume or Kant or maybe Quine? I mean 10 out of 10 for bombast, but not very high marks for pragmatism. The problem with twisting the mundane into an Overarching Philosophical Treatise is that it totally ignores the actual specifics of the mundane. Didn’t you read my OP? This wasn’t about any attempt to “turn the mods into your personal secretaries” or “hmmm. I didn’t say that right”, oh Wise Theocratic Professor, it was about a 50% complete post that I accidentally hit “Submit” instead of “Preview”. Leaving it as it was would vastly **increase** the confusion, which “makes it difficult to follow”. “It breaks the flow.” Once I accidentally posted something half-finished, “it becomes ‘published’; a part of the history of the board.” The mundane specifics must be judged on a case-by-case basis. Absolute Philosophical Rules have no place in the real world, and certainly not a message board! Such ego! This is a message board, not a Grand Grotesque Museum of the Permanent Display of All Errors, Verbatim. Let me know when your book comes out. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-on-mods-ability-to-alter-posts/534199/19 "2010-04-06T01:20:26Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > If you make an incomplete post, and it’s too late to edit it, why not add a post to the thread saying something like, “Sorry, I hit Submit too soon. Here’s the rest of what I meant to say: …”? Because what was there was the result of a bad cut & paste that made no sense and hadn’t even been _read_ yet, let alone checked. It would be a garbage post in a thread in which I was already being called names and verbally abused. Not something I wanted hanging around to provoke further abuse! ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [April 6, 2010, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-on-mods-ability-to-alter-posts/534199/20 "2010-04-06T01:25:38Z")
> [@Sapo](#): > > The window has to close at some point and it will always be arbitrary. And I don’t think it defies the spirit of the “published” thingamabob. It is a short window to correct embarrassing typos and other minor things, not to rethink the post. > > ETA: You don’t want to have a post changed after the poster has read responses to it. 5 minutes is short enough to accomplish that and long enough to allow a reread and fixing minor things (like adding this) Oh, jeez. There **were** no responses! I accidentally hit “Submit” it in the wee hours with no active green signals of presence. Please read the post 18 on that whole “spirit” / “philosophy” versus real-world specifics. Philosophy and “spirit” are fine in some contexts, but very, very stupid in others. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/limits-on-mods-ability-to-alter-posts/534199.md?page=2)