[WIBNI] Restrict the editing of posts...

[z05DSL3A]

Isn't it annoying when someone comes to the forum, asks their question and on receiving the answer promptly deletes their question?

Can something be done about this? Like remove the ability to edit once someone has replied.

[tummychow]

I've only seen this a few times myself. It seems to be primarily a silly thing. Removing the edit power once someone has replied does make sense though, since any further commentary you wanted to add could then be posted without a dbl post. But as much as I understand how annoying it is, I don't think it really holds a lot of weight in my mind. My opinion only, of course. I tend to get annoyed about other things instead.

[Bazzy]

This can be annoying as that thread cannot be used as reference any more.
As it's not possible to delete a post once replied, I agree that it should be locked from editing too.
The problem with this is that then someone cannot fix something on a previous post which got a reply, this is not good too

[tummychow]

You can always post anew.

[z05DSL3A]

The problem with this is that then someone cannot fix something on a previous post which got a reply, this is not good too

That can also cause confusion, I have come late to some threads and reading them makes no sense because the OP edits the original inline with a response maybe two or three posts down the line.

Maybe you could have something like removing the ability to edit but allowing an addendum to the post once it has been replied to...but then you still can't ask someone to put code tags in there original post...maybe it's not a good idea...

[helios]

Maybe you could have something like removing the ability to edit but allowing an addendum to the post once it has been replied to

That seems like the best solution.

[z05DSL3A]

I feel the need to bring this up again.

Any ideas that we can put to twicker?

[chrisname]

Perhaps when a post has been replied to, the poster can make additions but not subtractions such that they can't delete their post, but could add code tags if necessary. We could also limit this only to the original poster (but not just the original post) -- people who answer questions correctly are unlikely to remove their answers. Posts which are incorrect aren't useful anyway.

[Albatross]

I suggest eliminating the editing of the original post altogether after someone replies, but not necessarily the following posts by the OP.

-Albatross

[chrisname]

Well, some people delete the content of all subsequent posts. It is true that the original post is most important to someone trying to read a question that has been answered, but I think that succeeding posts by the OP are important too.

[Albatross]

Ideally, we'd have some way of checking the content of any post (EDIT: before all editing).

-Albatross

[chrisname]

That, unfortunately, seems rather unrealistic.

[Albatross]

Indeed. That's why I said "Ideally". ;)

Actually, both our ideas... em... might increase the hacking of threads, which is already a problem in the Beginners forum.

-Albatross

[chrisname]

What do you mean? Why would that increase thread hijacking?

Edit: Also, the General forum is worse IMO. Not for this particular issue, but because 50% of questions there belong in the Beginners forum....

[Albatross]

If people couldn't edit their posts in their own thread, why not post in other threads where they could?

-Albatross

@EDIT: Agreed. Rename it to Advanced C++?

[Bazzy]

Maybe a solution to prevent the removal of valuable information would be checking the distance between the edited text and the original before submitting.
This way typos can be fixed and tags added but an edit in which all text is replaced with garbage characters would be rejected

[chrisname]

@Albatross,
Good point; but I suppose the same would be true of any solution.

@Bazzy,
That seems impractical and difficult to implement.

[Bazzy]

It's not much difficult but the computation would take a lot of memory

[chrisname]

Seems like a lot of effort to go to given that the problem isn't as bad as it could be (having said that, prevention is better than cure).

[Duthomhas]

While it baffles me why people do such a thing, I still don't think it is necessarily such a good idea to prevent editing.

I have often found it useful to go back and edit a post to fix a minor error. That way future readers can have corrected examples. That said, I always indicate that I made changes to correct an error... usually in response to someone else saying "Hey, didn't you mean X on line Y?".

Editing posts is a double-edges sword.

A lot of wikis save all past versions of a page, and allow you to peruse them. This makes it easier for wiki editors to fix grafitti and errors and the like. In our case, it would be nice to see what was originally posted.

I don't know of twicker keeps the storage space to do that though...