Hank Fletcher
New Member
I don't know, but does the 15 minute edit window begin the second you start a new thread? I sense that maybe it does, which is unfortunate, because some of my posts can be quite wordy. I try to be careful, but the more words, the greater chance of making a typo.
The kinds of typo are usually things that would otherwise confuse or misdirect the intent of the post, such as dropping a negative qualifier (e.g. "I did do this" instead of "I didn't do this") or using plural instead of singular nouns or vice versa.
I can understand there being some limits on the edit function, for instance, in the interest of maintaining the integrity of the forum. The value in the forum is the people who help - it's not fair for their hard work to be effectively nullified because an OP decides to remove or distort their original inquiry and consequent discussion. I think the basic idea of the forum is to build a body of knowledge where successive people can learn from a constantly growing, mutable, and collective understanding. That can't happen if there's excessive retro-censorship. The cost of asking a question here is submitting yourself to a public display of your learning process. Given the aforementioned philanthropic nature of the supposed purpose of this forum, you should be proud to be stupid, as long as you're asking questions here, and learning from the experience.
On the otherhand, I think there's virtue in putting the onus of clarity on the OP (or even responders). I can only remember seeing one instance of a member, who I don't think is even on this forum anymore, who chose to interfere with the intent of the forum by deleting the content of his posts. I'm not convinced that that in itself is enough reason to limit the editing window to 15 minutes.
Perhaps something on the order of 24 hours might work better? That would allow enough time for someone to respond to the OP, realize or have pointed out to them where their typo was, correct the typo, and avoid situations where the OP or responder might have to duplicate an entire post or get into editorial discussions (which might distract from discussing electronics).
The idea is that, at a glance, the forum should be an easy-to-read electronics forum, as oppose to a reflection of electronics enthusiasts constantly tripping over typos. I don't want to view the process of people working to correct trivial typos every time I click on a thread I thought I'd be interested in. I'd rather just presume that they'd take the responsibility for that process themselves, and not be distracted from reading the real electonics details of their posts.
The kinds of typo are usually things that would otherwise confuse or misdirect the intent of the post, such as dropping a negative qualifier (e.g. "I did do this" instead of "I didn't do this") or using plural instead of singular nouns or vice versa.
I can understand there being some limits on the edit function, for instance, in the interest of maintaining the integrity of the forum. The value in the forum is the people who help - it's not fair for their hard work to be effectively nullified because an OP decides to remove or distort their original inquiry and consequent discussion. I think the basic idea of the forum is to build a body of knowledge where successive people can learn from a constantly growing, mutable, and collective understanding. That can't happen if there's excessive retro-censorship. The cost of asking a question here is submitting yourself to a public display of your learning process. Given the aforementioned philanthropic nature of the supposed purpose of this forum, you should be proud to be stupid, as long as you're asking questions here, and learning from the experience.
On the otherhand, I think there's virtue in putting the onus of clarity on the OP (or even responders). I can only remember seeing one instance of a member, who I don't think is even on this forum anymore, who chose to interfere with the intent of the forum by deleting the content of his posts. I'm not convinced that that in itself is enough reason to limit the editing window to 15 minutes.
Perhaps something on the order of 24 hours might work better? That would allow enough time for someone to respond to the OP, realize or have pointed out to them where their typo was, correct the typo, and avoid situations where the OP or responder might have to duplicate an entire post or get into editorial discussions (which might distract from discussing electronics).
The idea is that, at a glance, the forum should be an easy-to-read electronics forum, as oppose to a reflection of electronics enthusiasts constantly tripping over typos. I don't want to view the process of people working to correct trivial typos every time I click on a thread I thought I'd be interested in. I'd rather just presume that they'd take the responsibility for that process themselves, and not be distracted from reading the real electonics details of their posts.
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