I don’t know why this option is closed, but her is a suggestion:
Some boards have this option for an unlimited period of time, while other have a limit of 10 miuttes to delete/edit your post/reply.
The SDMB should allow users to delete/edit within a limit of 10 minuttes after it’s posted.
What do Moderators and Administrators think about this suggestion ?
Well, I’m not an admin or mod. But the idea has been suggested before.
Unfortunately, there are those types around here who would edit a post they made so as to invalidate a later counter-argument by another poster.
Even though I may make an occassional typographical error and would like to correct it; I’m glad the board is the way it is. It’s much like speech. You can always issue a second statement clarifying the first, but you can’t really take back what you said.
Zev Steinhardt
I see the problem, but this will be difficult if the limit of editing is set to 10 minutes.
Maybe. But why even open the can of worms if you don’t have to? Because you want to correct a typo? Big deal. I have plenty of them around this site, and no one’s thought any less of me (I think) because of it.
In short (as you’re probably discovering) people judge you by the quality of your posts. If you post with intelligence, people will ignore your typos. If you post without proper forethought, people will get on you for typing ‘og’ instead of ‘of’.
Zev Steinhardt
A MAJOR problem with this, as I understand it, is that it places more of a burden on the server, which is struggling and gasping for breath as it is.
However, I am not a tech, so I might have misunderstood the reasoning.
As I see it, the board has always had a post editing feature. It’s called Preview.
It can’t be abused like post editing can be, and it’s already enabled. I have no idea how taxing it is on the server, but it can’t be anywhere near as taxing as post-posting editing is. And just like post editing, it can save you from looking like an idiot.
All it takes is falling into the habit. And a little patience.
Rather than enabling something under the “because other boards let their users do it” mentality, and leaving ourselves open to the feature’s potential for abuse and strain on the server, let’s first make use of what we have.
The effort on the server of editing a post is between that of previewing it and that of submitting a new post. I can’t tell you CPU cycles or anything, but I know it is true. Editing does an “UPDATE” instead of an “INSERT”, which is less server intensive. But more server intensive than using preview.
What definitely does lead to server strain is the following, which seemed to happen hourly over the last few months:
User 1 Post 1: “You goat-fletcher!”
User 1 Post 2: “Oops - I meant goat-lecher!”
User 2 Post 1: “Dude, learn how to spel!”
User 3 Post 1: “Someone fell into Gaudere’s Rule!”
User 1 Post 3: “Damn damn damn! Preview is my frined!”
User 1 Post 4: “Never mind”
User 4 Post 1: “User 1, your presence is requested in the Pit…”
IMO, give everyone 60 seconds to edit, and immediately ban with no second chances anyone who abuses the privledge. This has the added benefit of reducing server load quite a bit. 
I can see the point about the 60 second option Una, but I quite often find that it takes more than 60 seconds for a post to go through, and for me to be returned to the thread. To extend the edit period beyond 60 seconds would render it liable to abuse, to enable it with a 60 second limit would make it useless for many people. Catch-22.
I moderate another board where users can only edit posts & they seem to behave. I haven’t had to delete any posts because of after post- edit changes. Also name calling & other things are not allowed there in the first place.
There is a note under the post that indicates if the user has changed their post or not.
Users that behave? And this applies to the SDMB how? 
When I see the collection of cutthroats and rogues that frequent this board I am sometimes afraid to turn my back on my monitor. :eek:
Interestingly, not only can the OP not edit/delete his posts, now he can’t even post at all. 
Zev Steinhardt
From at least before the time I registered (Dec '99) this board has had edit disabled. The stated reason was to prevent people from changing what they’d previously said for malicious purposes.
As for what other boards do and do not allow and how their members behave, well, This is NOT your other board. What happens on other boards is really irrelevant.
This board has a history of people posting deliberately to be malicious. We’ve had the code hacked (and thus html is off), links to porn, posted images of scat, and certain old posters who shall remain nameless who were notorious for their posting behavior in GD. Yep, they’re banned.
The point is, this board has had numerous features abused, and there is no reason to believe that edit would be free from abuse. The legitimate question would be if there is a way to enable edit that would improve usage here without creating more hassles than it fixes. Given that we already have a preview feature, I’m not sure it’s necessary. Now if members would just get over the need to point out every typo… 
“Users that behave?”
Yes, what’s odd is that they are mostly teenage boys, too. Not all, but most. We have, I think about 75,000 user accounts & there was something like 650 on the web site at one time.
Whoa! I do believe that’s bigger than the SDMB. Let’s hope not all those posters are as prolific are you are. I still would like a small part of the Internet bandwith for m own pitiful little posting efforts.
Una: that 60 seconds you give on the UnaBoard - that’s from when to when? (For instance, is it from the time you’re returned to the thread where you’ve posted, until you click on the ‘edit’ button?)
Irishman:
Which makes sense if we’re talking about even a fifteen-minute window in which to edit, but in every thread I’ve read about this issue, I’ve never seen a mod or admin explain how that would be a problem with a one or two minute window.
They’re always welcome to defend it on the grounds of “it’s our board, and it’s easier for us to do it this way,” because it is their board. But to the best of my recollection, they’ve never either argued the merits of not having a 1-2 minute edit window, or gone the “it’s our board” route. This is why it’s reasonable to consider it an open question.
No, it isn’t. What works on other boards can provide insight as to what might work here.
during the dark days, the evil days, the days we don’t wish to speak of (ie when SDMB was down), I was visiting another site, which allowed for editing.
and, although most folks seemed to use it for the ‘oops, I screwed up the coding/spelling’ type of thing, in that short time, there was a long acrimonious thread wherein some one posted some very inflamatory stuff, then deleted it.
Then, of course, the deletion itself became the inflamatory issue (w/me, of course, pointing out how ironic it was that the OP complained that folks were taking her words out of context when it was she herself who’d taken the words out totally, so no one could see the context.)
I like this system better. Especially given the size of the board and the prolific nature of the (ahem) ‘guests’ that sometimes wander up from under the bridge.
We are trying to be careful with changes we make during our first few weeks on vBulletin 2.2.
[ol]
[li]I can see, with a board of this size, where posts are frequent and simulposts not uncommon, that even allowing a 60-second editing time frame could cause problems, with for example someone posting insults and then immediately retracting them, with the expectation that at least one person should see them.[/li][li]With judicial use of preview, and the practice of reading what you just typed in the reply window, the necessity of editing posts decrease dramatically.[/li][li]If I want to correct something (which happens periodically), I usually just include a second post right after the first one. Of course this is undesirable, and it’s better to make sure your post is correct before pressing the Submit Reply button.[/li][/ol]
Yes, I am aware of the irony shown by the fact that I had to edit my last post.
Actually, I give a 1-hour window. There is also a 5-minute window in which you can edit, and it won’t say “edited by…”. This second window is intended for the quick spelling fix.
No one has ever mis-used it in 10 months. And I would immediately ban someone who purposefully did so.
If you can edit your post the EDIT link should be there, if not, it shouldn’t be there. It just confuses people otherwise.