I've noticed some forum changes lately. My favourite part of this forum was the "edit" button. I hate typoss! I mean, typos. The edit button seems to disappear and never reappear after I leave my post. I think other members were using this manner of improving coherence in their posts, too, and it's more convenient than proof-reading or copying into Word to check before you post. Bring back the edit feature!

 

I think it's a 15 minute edit timer. IMO it's a good idea.

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Bill
Smart Kits build Smart People
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Hank,

I agree completely. On forums where opinions are posted and arguments won and lost the lack of edit facilities may be a good thing, on a technical forum editing is essential.

How many times do you see posts that have been corrected due to a later post pointing out the error. With this new system you will get numerous posts pointing out the error in post 3 because that error cannot be rectified. This is and will be a valuable archive, to have it full of errors is plain silly.

Whilst I think a 15 minute edit time is far too short, I don't think going back to infinite edit time is a good thing. Maybe make it something like a week. My reason for this is that a thread I spent a lot of time answering became pointless when the OP went back months later and deleted all his posts.

Mike.
Edited to point out I was agreeing with Hank.

 

Testing Editing Button.

EDIT: THe button works...at least for a time. If it does expire it should be at least an hour. I've spent an hour before editing and rediting particularily important and complex posts.

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Why do you think it's a good idea?

Mike.

 

For the same reason as you originally posted, some users would delete entire threads if they were unhappy or reedit and put the post out of context. If you make a mistake just post a message saying so in a reply, most people seem to only read the most recent posts anyway.

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Bill
Smart Kits build Smart People
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When I first noticed the change I agreed with Hank. After a while I changed my mind and now agree with Bill. Technical corrections can be made in a followup post, but going back after the fact and revising earlier posts can invalidate (or at least render confusing) any following discussion of the post.

There are cases where I've learned quite a bit from following a thread through a bad initial circuit post, followed by several posts in which the designer is coached toward a better solution. Some of those conversations would have been harder to understand if the original post were not intact.

The time limit could be longer, though.


Just my $0.02,

Torben

 

Maybe posters views are swayed by where they tend to post. Personally, I post mostly in the Microcontroller section and tend to post a lot of code examples. The idea of not being able to correct erroneous code will make me far less likely to post in the future.

I can only think of one example where the edit system has been abused and that would have been fixed by setting the edit time to 1 week. Most poster also add an edit note to prevent any confusion.

As I said earlier, this is a valuable archive and should be kept as error free as possible. Deliberately making it difficult to correct errors just seems silly.

Mike.

 

I can't edit my last posit anymore!

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I see where you're coming from but I disagree that it's any harder to make corrections. Posting a correction doesn't seem to me any worse an option than editing the earlier post and has the added benefit of not invalidating any following discussion.

I think a week would be a bit long but maybe the lesser of one login session or 24 hours would be good.

I agree with your point on the "which forum you post on" thing but that would only apply to those posting nearly exclusively in Chit Chat. The other forums are all technical (well, maybe General Electronics Chat too).


Torben

 

When people use the search engine to find the solution to a problem or a particular piece of code they don't read the whole thread.

Hands up, who wants an archive with fewer errors? I do.

Leaving the errors will reduce it's value.

Mike.

 

Whatever; I honestly don't think it's a big issue one way or the other. People who can't be bothered to scan a thread for corrections have only themselves to blame.

I was happy with it before except when people would edit their old posts, and I'm happy with it now (so far).


Torben

 

Test post.

Edit

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Another Test post

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I also post at the following sites:
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And http://www.silicontronics.com, same screen name as here.

 

I've noticed this to.

This is odd, I would have thought it only disabled the edit button after someone else has posted, unless it doesn't work if you double post.

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I also post at the following sites:
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Screen name: Aloone_Jonez
And http://www.silicontronics.com, same screen name as here.