Mike's PCjr Page

Is there a reason for the limited time window for editing posts? It's king of annoying not being able to update things or fix typos.

The current setting is 15 minutes. What do you propose it should be?

Honestly? No limit.
It lets people who made a thread to ask a question update the OP when it's answered (also making it easier for people who may be wanting to know the same thing), mark stuff in their for/sale/trade threads as bought or traded, update with links to new versions of projects or other resources.

I've been on two many web forums where generous editing policies have allowed people to rage quite and delete things they wrote months prior. And it's a major effort to clean that up.

I'd be willing to extend the editing time limit to 30 minutes to cover typos, but really adding updates to a thread is why it's called a thread - you can see the progression of the topic from start to finish. If a thread really does become the canonical resource for something, then the content should probably be edited, consolidated, and put on a page or a wiki.

Even without malicious intent, the ability to edit threads can be confusing; you thought something was there and then it has changed. And you just can't jump to the end to see what is different or updated; you have to reread the entire thread again because who knows where the edits were. And sure, posts are marked if they are edited but that is even more steps.

Does anybody else have strong opinions on the matter?

I agree with Mike. It’s better to treat threads as historical records of discussions rather than as a wiki, so the editing window should be limited. If a thread leads to important conclusions or provides key information, the juicy tidbits should be collected and highlighted on another page with links to the relevant thread posts.

More thoughts:

• In addition to rage-quitting episodes, I’ve seen plenty of cases elsewhere in which mid-thread posts were edited, deleted, or censored, causing the remaining replies to no longer make sense. I think the editing limit should be 15 minutes after posting or till the next post in the thread, whichever comes first.
• The site owner naturally needs to be able to edit posts retroactively to avoid legal liability. It’s unfortunate that practical realities require it, but, on the bright side, this forum doesn’t seem to attract too much trouble.
• Old-school email lists and newsgroups give you no editing grace period at all. Once you’ve sent a message, there’s no taking it back, and it’s forever on the record. You have a broad editing window before you post, as on this forum, and that’s where you need to pay attention. Your posts, typos and all, are going on the permanent historical record anyway, and you shouldn’t have any illusions about that.
• People know to skip to the end of the thread and work backwards if they want the latest information. While that can be a pain for chatty threads with thousands of posts, it’s not much of a problem on this forum. Also, people can search for a particular user’s posts if they’re interested in updates from that user.

Gotcha. Makes sense.