Editing post

[roger lee]

I went to edit a post in "ask a mechanic" section.. I don't see this can be done anymore? Can my post that have mistakes still be edited in that section? I see it can be done here in Hangar Talk.. Did the Moderator turn the edit function off?

[FastEddieB]

My impression is the edit option goes away after a set time. I’ve noticed it varies widely from site to site, with some having no limit at all. Maybe a mod can elucidate us to where it’s set for this forum and why.

Don’t know what that time limit is here. It’s a balance - I’d like to be able to make changes for at least a few days. Then again, if too much time is allowed, you get the isolated person going back and editing out all their content in a fit of pique, which is not desireable to most readers who value continuity.

[TimTaylor]

Delete...

[3Dreaming]

Delete...

The post I made at 10 this morning no longer has the option to edit it.

Edited to add: This post allowed me to edit it immediately after posting.

[3Dreaming]

Less than 2 hours later the edit option is gone.

[Merlinspop]

I'm sure a mod can open it back up by request or make a requested change for you. In the mean time, you could reply to your own post, quoting yourself and highlight the erroneous section and then add the correction. Not completely optimal, but anyone that reads through a whole thread ought to be able to get what you mean. I believe I did something similar not too long ago when I had a brain fart.

I, personally, thing is is far better than having the flow of entire threads destroyed by key portions being deleted.

[roger lee]

Why would any site remove the ability to edit one's own post? Many times you find an error in your post. Could be just a typo or things change and the post would then be wrong and should be able to have it updated.

I had the word Feb. in my post and after I posted it now I can't go back and fix it. So now I have people calling me confused.
Part numbers change, dates change, SB's change, bad info from a source changes, ect...
All other sites I'm on allow editing. This may be the only one I can't which raises concerns.

This is a poor decision for an admin.

[3Dreaming]

Why would any site remove the ability to edit one's own post? Many times you find an error in your post. Could be just a typo or things change and the post would then be wrong and should be able to have it updated.

I had the word Feb. in my post and after I posted it now I can't go back and fix it. So now I have people calling me confused.
Part numbers change, dates change, SB's change, bad info from a source changes, ect...
All other sites I'm on allow editing. This may be the only one I can't which raises concerns.

This is a poor decision for an admin.

My guess the Admin's were tired of getting complaints, because in the past there have been a few members who would come in and delete all of their post leaving threads disjointed.

[Warmi]

Why would any site remove the ability to edit one's own post? Many times you find an error in your post. Could be just a typo or things change and the post would then be wrong and should be able to have it updated.

I had the word Feb. in my post and after I posted it now I can't go back and fix it. So now I have people calling me confused.
Part numbers change, dates change, SB's change, bad info from a source changes, ect...
All other sites I'm on allow editing. This may be the only one I can't which raises concerns.

This is a poor decision for an admin.

It is a compromise. If you think of these posts as some kind of blog-like entries then being able to go back in time and modify makes perfect sense .... but most people consider forums to be more like discussion threads which work just like real-life conversations - you can make a correction while the conversation is still in progress but you can't go back in time ,to say yesterday's water cooler discussion you had , and change it.

Some of that "time-bending" is actually happening on this forum - people can and do delete their past posts in entirety which makes following conversations pretty hard ...

[FastEddieB]

All other sites I'm on allow editing. This may be the only one I can't which raises concerns.

This is a poor decision for an admin.

I frequent about a dozen forums on a regular basis.

All but one set a time limit on edits. If that time limit is reasonable, I think it's reasonable (duh).

Lots or lurkers and newbies stumble on threads, sometime years after the first post, and read them sequentially. There is a value in preserving the content as originally posted for posterity.

Its not just the aggravation of childishly deleted posts - whenever a post is modified long after the fact, subsequent replies to it may be hard to make sense of.

[ShawnM]

All other sites I'm on allow editing. This may be the only one I can't which raises concerns.

This is a poor decision for an admin.

I frequent about a dozen forums on a regular basis.

All but one set a time limit on edits. If that time limit is reasonable, I think it's reasonable (duh).

Lots or lurkers and newbies stumble on threads, sometime years after the first post, and read them sequentially. There is a value in preserving the content as originally posted for posterity.

Its not just the aggravation of childishly deleted posts - whenever a post is modified long after the fact, subsequent replies to it may be hard to make sense of.

What's interesting is that of all the sites I visit regularly this is the only one that DOESN'T allow editing at any time. Go figure.

I agree with Roger, if I find an error in my previous posts I can't correct it, doesn't make any sense at all.

[Scooper]

I regularly post on BikeForums.net, a bicycling forum, and the ability to edit is cut off three minutes after the original post is made. That's enough time to read your post and correct typos or grammatical errors, but not enough time to come back hours later and completely change the original meaning of the post.

IMHO that's perfectly reasonable.

[FastEddieB]

A lot of times I'll see one of my posts quoted here or on another forum, and catch a misspelling, error in grammar, confusing sentence structure - that sort of thing.

If that happens within a couple of days, I like the option of going back to clean the post up, though my error is of course immortalized in the quoted text block.

If I were king, I'd give 3 or 4 days in which to edit a post, then lock it down.

Between no editing at all and editing for all eternity, there has to be a happy medium somewhere.

[roger lee]

What happens after 3 minutes. You find it wrong the next day, specs on an item change, SB's change, dates in a post change. There is no avenue to fix it. The people that want to delete all their post are far and few between. So everyone else on the forum gets penalised for 1-2 people.
All I needed to do was change the word Feb. to April.

[Scooper]

What happens after 3 minutes. You find it wrong the next day, specs on an item change, SB's change, dates in a post change. There is no avenue to fix it. The people that want to delete all their post are far and few between. So everyone else on the forum gets penalised for 1-2 people.
All I needed to do was change the word Feb. to April.

Post a correction in the same thread?