Whilst I think it is great that we are able to ‘edit’ our posts, it seems to me that significant stuff should not be able to be added to the op, just the original post edited for clarity, typos and maybe to add a smilie or two if necessary.
When posters are able to add whatever the hell they like to a post, and in some cases, significantly changing the thrust and direction of said thread, it makes subsequent posts rather redundant if the latter posters have posted within the five minute time frame without checking the preview button.
Just to come straight with the administration here: kambuckta expressed concern over an edit I made in this thread. There was a 21 minute gap between my edit and her post in reply, but she didn’t use preview after typing her post up, then leaving her PC for that time, and then returning to press submit.
I added the edit because I realised after pressing submit that I should have added the quote. Because of the length of time between my edit and her post, I had assumed kambuckta had read it before posting. My apologies to the SDMB if I’m in error.
In this particular case, I did respond to the original quote, but the latter addition added a new dimension to the thread and I was accused of ‘selective reading’ in not so many words.
Apart from my own experience here though, I do believe that the ‘edit’ function needs to be seriously limited in what can and cannot be added or deleted in order to avoid future misunderstandings like this.
It looks like even if I’d made the quote in an entirely new post, in the same timeframe, kambuckta would have missed it, given the situation she described.
Ahh, very nice backhand there Icey. :rolleyes: :rolleyes:
I’ve gotta give it to you, no matter how many points you are down, regardless of the fact that I was addressing the ‘function’ and not YOU, you still manage to chuck in a few cheap shots.
What cheap shot? Stop taking things so personally, kambuckta. You went off and did your dishes, in the middle of making a post. You missed the edit, you would have missed a new post had I done that instead. My comment here was with regard to the use of the edit function, not you or how you post – that is, whichever way it happened, the misunderstanding would still have arisen. :rolleyes:
There is no way to limit what edits can be made. Either we get to edit or we don’t.
If anyone ‘mis-uses’ the edit function to change meaning after ‘luring’ in posters, that will become quite clear from the nature of the exchanges and the existence of the “last edited by …” tag at the end of the post. The collective Board community will no doubt treat such posters as pariahs.
If this becomes a serious problem, the admins will simply turn the edit function off. Given that we’ve been asking for this for years, and promising that we would be self-policing, I’d hate to think that we can’t manage to iron out the occasional dispute without spilling it across a whole bunch of threads.
From where I stand, I know who I think needs to grow up. :rolleyes:
DSYoung has covered the situation very well. I have a few points to add:
DS says: “There is no way to limit what edits can be made. Either we get to edit or we don’t.” Basically, the edit function does not distinguish between “major” and “minor” edits. The only way to make that distinction is to have a human being (like a Moderator) interposed: that’s the old system, where you couldn’t edit your own posts, you had to email a Moderator to do so for you. And, in that case, the Moderator would only do minor (like grammar and spelling) edits.
The fears that kambuckta expresses are exactly the reasons that we didn’t allow editing in the past (plus, the fear of slow-down of the server.) If we find abuses of the system, we’ll go back to no self-editing – which, frankly, is my preference anyhow.
Finally: this forum is About this Message Board. You want to call each other names, go to the Pit.
This is why one should preview before clicking submit after walking away from the computer while composing a post. A lot can happen in that time, and I don’t just mean edits; people might have already posted the same basic thing you were going to, the person you were replying to might have clarified something in a subsequent post which you would need to know to respond intelligently, among many other possibilities. If you wound up looking foolish in this case, you have no one to blame but yourself. Ice Wolf did nothing wrong here.
My vote (do we get one? ;)) goes for “go back”. Don’t get me wrong, I seek change (liberal). I just think that no-edit tends to keep posters on their toes, which is a good thing in a board of this quality. I just edited a post, and now I feel strangely dirty. :eek:
Peace,
mangeorge
Seconded. This has nothing to do with the edit feature, and everything to do with a delayed response to a thread without refreshing the view. Preview, Preview, Preview.
