EEVblog Electronics Community Forum

Speaking form years of experience running forums ...

There should be a time limit on editing posts. Make it a few hours or a day if you wish, but no limit on editing? Not a good idea at all.

Reason is, people may have already quoted the post, so editing the original days later can lead to confusing threads. Also, I've actually seen members get so pissed at another member, or the staff, that they want to delete all their posts in protest. Finding that they can't, they will go back and edit all their posts to blanks or like this -

"..."

As I said before, if a member makes a mistake and posts personal info that they find puts them in an awkward or dangerous situation, certainly the forum staff can take that into account and fix it for them. The Admin can edit any post at any time. But if you just make dumb posts and/or post wrong info, then to the first that's tuff sh*t, and to the second, post a correction post or thread to fix it.

How often does this happen? Most of the threads I have come across that seem a little discontinuous have usually been edited by a moderator and often at the disappointment of those involved in it. They modify it to suite their sensibilities yet the person that actually wrote the post can't edit/delete it to suite theirs?

The thing I'm finding most interesting is that the majority of people who are pro-banning the edit/deletion capability are pushing the high moral ground of "loss of valuable information" when in actual fact they have torn strips out of some nOOb for asking/demanding something stupid and they don't want their vitriol left standing in isolation.

It also seem that most of the arguments for banning have a punitive, self righteous, almost malicious overtone. This is simply a forum of like minded individuals talking about stuff. We are not involved in creating the worlds "suppository" (new Oz word, look it up... no, not there, on google) of all things electronic. Stop taking things so seriously and let people be... well, human.

I agree with "let people be well, human"!!!
Yes, some people could use the search function more (or at all), but the times I have used it, I came up with WAY more hits that were NOT what I was looking for (like "reset flir E4 ip address" or e4 ip address" or "e4 ip" or (many variants of the previous)), and NO relevant hits came back.

I did post on the e4 teardown thread a rather simple question, and was torn apart by another member for being lazy or "yoda mode on" .... turns out that the member that tore me apart confused me with someone else and didn't take the time to publicly apologize for the snappy post, but just removed it.  This was, or course after the post had been read by others.

I did receive a helpful post from another member and I thanked him for his help.... it is always a good idea to acknowledge a helpful reply!

I have since wanted to ask another question AFTER using the search function to no avail, but will not because of the hostility by some people.... it just isn't worth it!  These forums are supposed to be HELPFUL... I feel if someone doesn't think they can help, and decide to be nasty... DON'T POST ANYTHING AT ALL!!

EVERYONE MUST REMEMBER... that THEY had to start somewhere also!  and didn't know jack in the beginning and had to ask questions too!

Reason is, people may have already quoted the post, so editing the original days later can lead to confusing threads. Also, I've actually seen members get so pissed at another member, or the staff, that they want to delete all their posts in protest. Finding that they can't, they will go back and edit all their posts to blanks or like this -

In those rare cases a mod can simply delete those posts.
This forum can't do timed edits anyway AFAIK

LOL. You have never run a forum have you? Yea, let's remove the rules, Admins, and mods and "let people be... well, human". It's all good, just let people be human. Lets stop taking things so seriously. The place would be trashed in less than a month.

The forum has had lifetime editing, post deletion, and account deletion (along with all posts) since day one. Last I checked it's running pretty smoothly 

The forum has had lifetime editing, post deletion, and account deletion (along with all posts) since day one. Last I checked it's running pretty smoothly 

But that's not all that I said is it Dave? Didn't you forget something else? Do you have Admins and Mods doing something here? Go ahead and let people be people like the guy said, which means don't change anything they do on the forum, and tell me what happens.

Look, you can of course do whatever you want, but I've seen it all on forums, I know everything that can happen and I've seen every possible thing members can do a lot longer than you have I bet. Say, you missed my last suggestion on the search function issue too ...

Look, you can of course do whatever you want, but I've seen it all on forums, I know everything that can happen and I've seen every possible thing members can do a lot longer than you have I bet. Say, you missed my last suggestion on the search function issue too ...

I have just as much forum experience as you do, right back the BBS days 25+ years ago. I know enough to know there is no right answer here.

I have just as much forum experience as you do, right back the BBS days 25+ years ago. I know enough to know there is no right answer here.

I disagree, there is a right answer - you do not allow deletion and editing of posts forever. That's the right answer. Any other option disrupts the historical nature of the forum. That simply cannot be argued, because it's true. 

The No votes are winning anyway. I've explained my reasons, why don't some of the other no votes add some insight - if I keep this up I'm going to be in the doghouse with the Admin. 

Quote from: AlfBaz on December 30, 2013, 09:37:26 pm

How often does this happen?

How often does what happen? People editing their posts or people getting pissed and deleting content?

either/or as is evident from the from most of the responses thus far but you knew that already it's just cool to quote every sentence of a post you don't agree with and chuck in your 2 cents

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Most of the threads I have come across that seem a little discontinuous have usually been edited by a moderator and often at the disappointment of those involved in it. They modify it to suite their sensibilities yet the person that actually wrote the post can't edit/delete it to suite theirs?

That's right, people should not be allowed to edit after a set period of time. The mods have to enforce any rules and so guess what? They have to modify threads and posts and piss people off sometimes. They have to make the forum run smoothly, the members don't do that.

An individual may not do that but other will soon make it apparent that their actions/behaviour is not appreciated. It's what society and its communities have been doing for centuries. Then again tyrants who know better have also tried to dictate terms to the masses for centuries also so nothing new here

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The thing I'm finding most interesting is that the majority of people who are pro-banning the edit/deletion capability are pushing the high moral ground of "loss of valuable information" when in actual fact they have torn strips out of some nOOb for asking/demanding something stupid and they don't want their vitriol left standing in isolation.

Moral high ground? I don't think it's a moral high ground to just make sure what's written stays as it was originally posted. It can just lead to a mess if you allow editing any post you make for as long as the forum is running. This is publishing. Should a newspaper go back and edit what was published last week, even digitally? No, but they should be able to post retractions and updates. You just should not go mucking around with a historical record, and that's what a forum is, essentially. If you do that, it's no longer a reliable record of member's interactions.

Oh come on!
Is that really your main concern here or are you just doing precisely what I was inferring. Historical record, newspapers... It's a forum to come and have a chat with other like minded people, not an archive of various scientific research topics. Most of the threads where this happen are usually off topic and prone to beliefs and opinions. Its rare that a technical discussion is afflicted with these incidents and if it is an individual retracting or modifying their post will usually be to the benefit of that thread if it's considered a technical resource

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Stop taking things so seriously and let people be... well, human.

LOL. You have never run a forum have you? Yea, let's remove the rules, Admins, and mods and "let people be... well, human". It's all good, just let people be human. Lets stop taking things so seriously. The place would be trashed in less than a month.

Not only had this forum being running for more years than I know, but it appears to have been running smoothly and growing in popularity just the way it is.
As for having never run a forum... who cares! That's not my job here and according to your moniker neither is it yours. We are here as participants, without which there is no forum. If self moderation doesn't work in a forum of semi-intelligent members then so be it, that's the collective outcome of it's members and the natural evolution of free thinking individuals. If you want to head down the path of a stringent rules driven forum then go start a electronics stack exchange

If a user can't delete a post but can edit it, then the information is permanently gone.
If  a user can delete a post then it is moved to the recycle bin where potentially it can be restored.

How long to keep deleted posts for and under what circumstances do you restore it?

If a user can delete a post and can edit it, and does in fact edit it, then the information is still permanently gone.

If a user can delete a post and cannot edit it, then this is a silly situation. Allow deletion, but not the rather useful edit button? Seriously? What happened to fixing typos, updating first posts to keep links to relevant topics up to date so new people can find information, etc?

If a user has deleted a post for what to them is a good reason, then they can just keep deleting the restored post(s) as there is no time limit to delete/edit.

In the cases where that really is an issue two easy solutions present themselves. 1) warn the user "OI! Don't do that (deleting) again, or else ...". or 2) pre-empt the deletion by restoring the post and then quote the post straight away.

Edit: used edit button. Oh yeah, and fixed a typo. Doh!

You don't disrupt the historical nature of the forum if a post is deleted soon after it is created.  The forum is a better place as a result. Sometimes I hit post to soon and I start over. Sometimes I realise I posted in the obviously wrong area. Sometimes I have second thought about whether I really wanted to be part of a thread.

I need to know how you define "soon" wilfred.

And IF there is no right answer here ...

Ah, but I said I did think there was a right answer, please review my posts. 

Having a limited window during which you can edit or delete posts is (I think)  a good thing and  standard on most (all?) of the vBulletin sites I frequent.
No such option in SMF

It appears that even moderators can make mistakes 

A bit more research reveals that you CAN in fact set a limit to the time frame in which you can edit a post. (Who'd have thought to read the manual?)
The time can be specified in minutes.

Please discuss amongst yourselves.

If you don't like that, then you might as well ask for articles to be submitted for publishing, and make sure they are not posting what they do not want, beforehand, then let people comment of them. i.e. you really do not want a forum after all, for that is what a forum is all about - the recording of the interactions of members for posterity. Yes, even their mistakes and stupidity, for all the world to see.

It's not a matter of what I like, it's entirely up to the forum owner.
What's important is a discussion of the pros and cons so Dave can make an informed decision.