Edit Post Notice and the [quote] function

[Greg]

Ok, please make note of these two recent decisions:

1) The edit post notice (the line that gets added below a post that is edited) will stay as a permanent feature of this forum. We are all responsible for the things we say, therefore it you edit something after it is posted, the other members should be aware of this change.

I am also going to lock older postings, so that members cannot go back and radically change a post that was posted past a certain date. I haven't decided on lockout period - perhaps a month will be sufficient.

2) All members are responsible for trimming quotes and replies. If you refuse to properly edit and format your replies, you will be warned once. If you continue to ignore the warnings, you will be suspended for 30 days. If it continues after that, you will be banned.

If you are having troubles with the [ quote ] function, feel free to ask me or Charles for help.

I will also be implementing a function that will remove embedded quotes. So if you're quoting a quote, you're out of luck - the embedded quote will be deleted. If this cause major problems, please report back here.

Please feel free to comment on these decisions below,

Thanks,

[geoffrey]

I still think edits within a couple minutes should not result in a message. You make a spelling error, or grammar error and quickly fix it... what's the point in having the edit message other than to raise unrequired suspicion.

After a couple of minutes, I agree.

Why have the lockout after a month? Make it an hour. If someone is changing a post an hour after it's posted, you've got to wonder what's up.

Ideally, if the goal was accoutability for what one says, you'd eliminate the edited line and just lockout posts after 15 minutes.

My 2 cents.

[gc1765]

I agree there should be a period of about 5 minutes in order to edit spelling mistakes etc. without the line appearing.

Not sure I understand the point of locking out a post though. If the argument did ever come up, which I have never seen in my time here, where one person says "you said this" and the other person says "no I didn't", the first person can always point to the post in question and say "look, you edited this month old post just five minutes ago...very suspicious". I like to think that most of us are more honest and mature than that anyhow.

[gc1765]

Another idea...and I'm just throwing this out there...is to have the option of stating the reason for the edit. I sometimes write a footnote for why I edited a post, however this takes up more space and I know how much Charles hates wasted space. The reason for editing could be included in the "edit post notice".

[cybercoma]

Overall, I agree with what you're trying to do, but I have a couple concerns:

1) Lots of posts continue to be posted in for months on end. If the system automatically locks those posts, posters will be forced to make a new thread, thereby making the discussions more difficult to follow for those who post only once a week or so.

2) Removing embedded posts is a fantastic idea, other forums I post at have already done that. I was wondering if the code could be "tweaked" to remove the extra space when quoting. There is an unnecessary carriage return at the beginning of quotes which makes a large gap at the top of the quote box.

[Michael Bluth]

Agreed that removing embedded posts was a great move.

A bit of a delay to allow for editing of typos etc. is also a good suggestion.

[Higgly]

Why not allow editing up until the point where somebody else adds a post to the thread? Can that be done? If you are the last poster, you have the floor, so to speak.

Also with respect to the number of little blueblocks we have, if you make it simply related to posts, you end up with a situation where a guy like Greg gets less blueblocks than someone like geoffrey. Not a slag on you geoffrey, but not altogether a good indicator of what's what.

Edited August 6, 2007 by Higgly

[Charles Anthony]

Why not allow editing up until the point where somebody else adds a post to the thread? Can that be done?

That is a good idea but it fails when a person starts a different thread based on entries from an old thread. I know it is a rare situation but it exists.