status-monitor Should NamePros Change the "Edit" 30 Mins Timelimit in the Discussion Area?

I'd like to keep it because we have seen what can happen when a scumbag goes back and edits their posts to completely misrepresent what they said. Living with a few typos is a small price to pay to keep people honest.

carob said:

I'd like to keep it because we have seen what can happen when a scumbag goes back and edits their posts to completely misrepresent what they said. Living with a few typos is a small price to pay to keep people honest.

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You could quote them then and there, but that's definitely a fair point.

We've experimented with a lot of different time limits. A popular incident, which carob might be referring to, occurred when we had it set to 300 minutes (5 hours). In the distant past, we've tried days, 24 hours, and more recently, we tried 60 minutes and then we ultimately landed on 30 minutes after much feedback and observation.

There is a large number of members who believe there should be 0 edit time, so we try to find the middle ground.

We're open to changing it if the poll indicates that we should.

Please submit your opinion to the poll. Thanks!

Here's the current policy: https://www.namepros.com/threads/li...sts-conversations-etc.1047417/#section-030000

carob said:

I'd like to keep it because we have seen what can happen when a scumbag goes back and edits their posts to completely misrepresent what they said. Living with a few typos is a small price to pay to keep people honest.

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Agreed with @carob ... and voted "No - It's Fine" .

One of the biggest issues with edits is that no one is notified when they occur. This can be a problem if you post something like, "I love candy" and 50 people Like it, but 20 minutes later, you change it to say something negative or derogatory, and yet, those 50 Likes will remain and possibly misrepresent the people who liked it. Edits can cause a real issue when they are allowed for too long.

30 minutes is still too long in some circumstances, like the one I described above.

UPDATE: I added a few more poll choices to the poll to give more options.

Above problematic points are major considerations, as well as the fact that after 30 mins there's likely (potentially) conversations stemmed from a post, and if the author changes it too much it can invalidate the discussions after it.

I know it's a bit of a d*ck thing to say, but if you care that much about "spelling and grammar" use your browser spell checker and proof read before posting
I have many times re-read a post and seen I've made smoe seplling mitsakes, but it's not the end of the world imo. The grace (30 min) edit is just in case you mucked something up entirely.

I vote leave it at 30 minutes
Aint broke don't fix it

I don't mind the limits but they should be allowed on the blog section too. I change my posts all the time because I write too many words

If concern why not show full revision history for edits > 5 mins ?
A diff wouldn't take that much storage would it?

DU said:

I don't mind the limits but they should be allowed on the blog section too. I change my posts all the time because I write too many words

If concern why not show full revision history for edits > 5 mins ?
A diff wouldn't take that much storage would it?

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What a brilliant idea. Whether NamePros implements such an edit history feature is another story.

Nice one though.

DU said:

If concern why not show full revision history for edits > 5 mins ?
A diff wouldn't take that much storage would it?

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We are working on adding this in a few places on the site, but not everywhere.

It would cause more issues in heated discussion threads because usually when someone edits a post in that situation, it's to make it less controversial and less combative. Allowing other heated members to read that first post that was written when emotions were at their peak would not help diffuse those situations.

There are also issues with allowing content that doesn't belong on NamePros to be accessible even after we remove it, due to this edit history feature. It's actually a dangerous and potentially disastrous feature unless you're very careful about where you allow it.

james haw said:

Above problematic points are major considerations, as well as the fact that after 30 mins there's likely (potentially) conversations stemmed from a post, and if the author changes it too much it can invalidate the discussions after it.

I know it's a bit of a d*ck thing to say, but if you care that much about "spelling and grammar" use your browser spell checker and proof read before posting
I have many times re-read a post and seen I've made smoe seplling mitsakes, but it's not the end of the world imo. The grace (30 min) edit is just in case you mucked something up entirely.

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You typed too fast so the words you typed in is not always correct. The spell checker will assumed that you meant to write this word, but not really. So spell checker is worthless. Gramar and spelling; should be a least important; as this is not for school term papers project. Everyone on here are not stupid. They understand you in either way.
The mean things that should be given some attention is that people calling names degrading and threats people. These should be automatically edited, and not allow to be posted etc. 30 minutes time line to edit your posting; is long enough. Just a thought.

LucidDomains said:

I find it quite annoying and I'm sure others do to, that there is only a 30 minute window to edit your posts in the discussion area. I do proof read my posts as much as I can, but I often still find spelling and grammar mistakes, plus other reasons I want to add/remove to existing posts instead of submitting another post.

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My most recent professor pointed out Grammarly for me. There will be no need to proof read your posts using this extension.

I personally think that the edit feature should go away immediately after someone quotes the message in a new post. This would leave no wiggle-room for going back and editing something out. Once you click post, it should reflect what you meant to say.

LucidDomains said:

I find it quite annoying and I'm sure others do to, that there is only a 30 minute window to edit your posts in the discussion area. I do proof read my posts as much as I can, but I often still find spelling and grammar mistakes, plus other reasons I want to add/remove to existing posts instead of submitting another post.

I'm sure I'm not the only person on here who has been frustrated by the 30 minute window to edit a post.

I would like to see if anyone else feels the same way and if you would like more time to edit, how much time?

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The after edits I find most common are forgotten domain obfuscations and other hidden, but point changing errors..

DU said:

I don't mind the limits but they should be allowed on the blog section too.

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Great suggestion. Why aren't edits allowed in blog? Is it because blog comments come quick, and it's for feedback, and not necessarily discussions?

DU said:

If concern why not show full revision history for edits > 5 mins ?

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Show edit history like Facebook now does? I've had somebody (who liked their own posts) make fun of me for nerding out in a political discussion, and having to edit some of my posts when I write something something < and need to edit the double something. Some people really dislike grammar nazis... not me...

Grilled said:

The after edits I find most common are forgotten domain obfuscations and other hidden, but point changing errors..

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DU said:

I don't mind the limits but they should be allowed on the blog section too.

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I believe edits are not allowed on the blog because most blogs do not allow comments to be edited and we want our blog to be similarly consistent with what others have come to expect and experience on blogs.

Update on Jan 4, 2019: Edits are now allowed on blog comments: Learn more.

Per @Eric Lyon closing my updated thread - this isn't about winning a poll, it's about users having control of their content.
https://www.namepros.com/threads/editing-posts.1020589/#post-6169746

There simply isn't a valid reason to remove a user's ability to edit their own content, outside of sales threads where binding offers are made. And even then NP isn't going to foot a legal bill to enforce a winning bid...

The reason is a lot of content would be changed, links wouldn't go to proper content in search engines, and then there are people that would simply delete every post they made that they didn't like, or every post period
I search my domain names and many times this forum is one of the top results.
Sometimes I regret seeing things or names I posted 5 years ago, most times it's not worth a lifetime of publicity for a few minutes of fame. Times have changed, but 30 minutes from now we know this post never will

Open up the edit the post option to indefinite would wipe out a lot of content on here, having it has wiped out a lot of people posting content/information. I would delete/edit many things, I have already done that to most if not all marketplace threads that are editable, when I first noticed this, as i don't think it was always like that.
Correct me if I am wrong

That rule will never change in our lifetime and neither will the content we have posted here.

Keith said:

There simply isn't a valid reason to remove a user's ability to edit their own content

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There are many good reasons, which is why the poll shows 30 minutes is preferred. One of the most common reasons is that discussions end up getting ruined when member(s) change their posts after a period of time because people trying to read the thread are unable to make sense of what was/is being discussed. There are many notorious instances of this happening where member(s) will go back days later and blank out all of their posts from a thread, change their posts (which changes the context), etc. In our experience, this frustrates members far more than an edit time limit.

We've experimented with many edit time limits over the years, and 30 minutes has proven to be the best option.

MasterOfMyDomains said:

I would delete/edit everything, I have already done that to most if not all marketplace threads that are editable, when I first noticed this, as i don't think it was always like that.
Correct me if I am wrong

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Yes, we added that policy a few years ago to allow marketplace threads and appraisal threads to be edited indefinitely. We can still view the edit history if any disputes arise.

Eric Lyon said:

There are many good reasons, which is why the poll shows 30 minutes is preferred. One of the most common reasons is that discussions end up getting ruined when member(s) change their posts after a period of time because people trying to read the thread are unable to make sense of what was/is being discussed. There are many notorious instances of this happening where member(s) will go back days later and blank out all of their posts from a thread, change their posts (which changes the context), etc. In our experience, this frustrates members far more than an edit time limit.

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I think adding edit history like Facebook does would solve all of this.

If something doesn't make sense, they can refer to the edit. If somebody wants to obfuscate a domain, or misinformation, they can. All in the while members can refer back to the edit log to find hidden gems.

The issue is the content won't be searchable anymore resulting in less traffic from search engines. Said traffic can sometimes be a new members gateway to the forum.

Obviously given that i'm at the center of a recent post related to this. I would have just hoped it could have been handled on a personal basis by the management for extreme circumstances, which doesn't help either the one who made the mistake or the people reading it. I'm sure everyone makes mistakes and atleast they should be given 1 chance to take it back.

Grilled said:

I think adding edit history like Facebook does would solve all of this.

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Interesting idea. I wonder if that would be helpful because if someone wants to edit something after 30 minutes, it's usually not a typo/grammar correction and it's usually because they don't want anyone to see it anymore. If we provided the history, then everyone would still be able to see it, but there would be an extra step to see it.

Many issues with allowing longer edit times arise in large threads of 10-100 pages and those threads already take a very long time to read. Imagine how much longer it would take to read those threads if we had to click "View Edit History" on posts.


Thanks for the idea,

Keith said:

Per @Eric Lyon There simply isn't a valid reason to remove a user's ability to edit their own content, outside of sales threads where binding offers are made. And even then NP isn't going to foot a legal bill to enforce a winning bid...

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If you allow people to go back and edit what they have said you take away all credibility of the forum, plain and simple along with threads becoming jibberish. We all put our foot in our mouths at some time and not just here.

shorterwinters said:

If you allow people to go back and edit what they have said you take away all credibility of the forum,

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How so??