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time limit to edit posts

Joined
19 January 2001
Messages
8,241
Location
Chandler, AZ
I am aware that there is a time limit to be able to edit posts (I believe it is 30 days?) at which time the edit button is removed from a post.

I am curious about the logic on this as it is not standard practice on other forums. By not being able to edit the post, you must instead update the information in the thread by posting in the thread. Because of the linear nature of forums like this, a reader viewing the post that reads out of date information in the original post may easily miss the updated information because the update is located further down the page or on a completely separate page. Since there is no way to reference the original post, the two old and new information becomes disjointed.

Another example is used parts posts. If the part sells beyond the allowed period to edit the post, you must post separately that it is "sold" which then adds work for the moderators to review and approve.

I cannot think of any negative aspects of allowing users to edit their posts. The edit does not "bump" a thread to the top, the edit is date/time stamped, and users even have the ability to add a note why the edit was done. One could make an argument that this may result in information being removed that may be valuable to others - but since only the author has this ability, it strikes me to not be valid.

I think the ability to edit posts will encourage authors to keep their information shared relevant & timely.

regards,
-- Chris
 
^ can't agree more.... i'm thinking about the threads i created to list parts and their photos (wiki just doesn't work for me)
 
This is a good idea. I seen other forums with build threads and it was nice to just look at the first post as they updated it over and over and not having to scroll thru especially if it was going on for awhile and you didn't see it before
 
I vote for the edit button too!
 
Just FYI, the current setting is 60 days.

The reason I enabled the setting to lock post from editing to begin with was that I was seeing recurring problems, particularly in the Marketplace section. Two examples of the most common types of problems:

* Someone selling a car edits the original 6-month-old post and posts a reply saying "new lower price!" when in fact they didn't lower it at all. I will generously categorize this as "misleading."

* Vendors remove item pricing from old abandoned threads before creating a new thread with a higher price. This isn't necessarily misleading, but it is historical fact in the community that the price used to be lower. I'm not sure what to call this.. maybe concealing. Yes, prices change. But I am not a fan of people trying to "edit history" in this way. If anyone complains that it used to be cheaper, well, almost everything used to be cheaper. If the price increase is reasonable, reasonable customers will pay it.

I realize there are down-sides to locking old posts from editing as well and that this is far from a perfect solution.

As for things like parts lists and photos, they absolutely need to go in the wiki. There is everyone someone who has offered to do this work for you. See http://www.nsxprime.com/forum/showthread.php?t=152742
 
Hi,

and can't that rule be applied to the marketplace foruns only??

one thing that is annoying is that lot's of sellers, once the part is sold, edit the original post to remove all the info regarding that part, as in price, photos, etc.
I think that is also as bad.

Thanks,
Nuno
 
one thing that is annoying is that lot's of sellers, once the part is sold, edit the original post to remove all the info regarding that part, as in price, photos, etc.
I think that is also as bad.

Thanks,
Nuno

This drives me absolutely bonkers. Noting the part is SOLD is great, but leaving the information, price, and photos would be GREAT for future reference. I have no idea why people choose to delete everything.
 
Hi,

and can't that rule be applied to the marketplace foruns only??

No. It is a global setting.

one thing that is annoying is that lot's of sellers, once the part is sold, edit the original post to remove all the info regarding that part, as in price, photos, etc.
I think that is also as bad.

I agree. The only way I know to really reduce how much of that occurs would be to reduce the edit time substantially. I picked 60 days as my best attempt at a compromise between letting folks have some latitude with editing and preventing what I feel is misuse. But there is nothing magic about that number.
 
well I have seen people go back and edit their post and you dont know what or why they edit it.

I remember some one was tring to sell a friends NSX and after a ton of pages went back thru and edited everything he was talking about
with a " ... " for some reason tring to hide something.

then recently there was a guy selling stuff after he sold it, he would then go back and " edit it " and delete everything in the orginal thread

example:

thread title = 2005 muffler/cats

edit = :SOLD

now I have a 2005 muffler and cats for sale I go to this thread to get an estimate of how much I should charge for my set, that would be a fair price and its blank.

I say keep it as is, or change the setting to 1 day. after 1 day you cant edit anything you posted.
 
Just thinking out loud here, but what if there was a compromise and we do the best of both worlds?

1. Remove the time limit to edit posts, making the option indefinite.
2. Have it set so that any edited posts must enter a moderation queue for approval. (this would only work if there is a way to set this as the original post in the thread, not every post).

This allows vendors to edit posts regardless of age and moderators can approve/deny based on validity as well as allow us to prevent people from completely editing a for sale thread to only read as "sold". If this requires an additional moderator or two to assist with, I'm pretty sure there a a few of us regulars willing to assist.
 
Those vendor and for sale posts seem to get edited almost right away, and I must say it does drive me nuts to not be able to go back and see what something sold for. But if it is done anyway... because it seems most are done before 60 days... why am I also losing the right to edit a post that is important and not sale-related after 60 days?

Seems like we are getting the worst of both worlds.
 
Last edited:
Just thinking out loud here, but what if there was a compromise and we do the best of both worlds?

1. Remove the time limit to edit posts, making the option indefinite.
2. Have it set so that any edited posts must enter a moderation queue for approval. (this would only work if there is a way to set this as the original post in the thread, not every post).

This allows vendors to edit posts regardless of age and moderators can approve/deny based on validity as well as allow us to prevent people from completely editing a for sale thread to only read as "sold". If this requires an additional moderator or two to assist with, I'm pretty sure there a a few of us regulars willing to assist.

Interesting idea... Unfortunately the software has no mechanism for moderator approval of edits.
 
Those vendor and for sale posts seem to get edited almost right away

The edits that are done right away are typically just fixing typos, formatting, etc... not the types of abuse I characterized above.

If you look back through the Marketplace the % of ads edited to delete contents is pretty small. Moderators often restore the contents if they run across it happening, which is fairly often since edits don't go back past 60 days so the ads being edited are relatively fresh. It's annoying when it happens, but as I said I'd have to cut the edit time down substantially to reduce it much further. I can do that if people don't think there is much benefit to having it at 60 days versus say 7 or even 1 as Shawn proposed above.
 
I can do that if people don't think there is much benefit to having it at 60 days versus say 7 or even 1 as Shawn proposed above.

I'm not sure I like having such a short time limit to edit my posts, as I sometimes notice glaring grammatical errors days (or even weeks) after my original submission, and being the OCD person that I am, I like being able to correct those mistakes.

It's unfortunate that the current software does not allow you to make individual settings for each forum. I know of at least one message board (CandlePowerForums) that has a separate bulletin system for their marketplace. I don't know if this was a primary driver for that setup, and of course one problem is that users have to create a separate ID for the secondary forum.
 
Hi,

and can't that rule be applied to the marketplace foruns only??

one thing that is annoying is that lot's of sellers, once the part is sold, edit the original post to remove all the info regarding that part, as in price, photos, etc.
I think that is also as bad.

Thanks,
Nuno

Case in point, this thread is now absolutely WORTHLESS:
http://nsxprime.com/forum/showthread.php?t=162006

Happens all the time. Why people do this, I have no idea.
 
I'm on several forums and this seems to be a common practice. In this case (since my FS post was highlighted as a "recent example of a worthless post") I was continuing to receive pm's after it sold. In previous FS listings i've added "EDIT" in bold letters at the very top of the post and continued to receive pm's after the fact.
 
I just went back and re-entered the information requested in order to help out other prime members, however I can't say I really see a problem deleting information from a post.
 
Hi folks,

I wasn't aware of this time limit to update old posts until I went to update the first post of my "Gen1 Market Analysis" post and found I could not. I searched and the results of that search brought me here. I have received multiple requests to update the information in that post and I have tried to help by making a live-updated link to an external site. My insights update daily with new data but the information in that post is over a year old. Worse, most if it has changed or is no longer true now that I have so much more data and a more robust analysis. I'd hate for the community to be mislead by the continued display of outdated pricing and value information. I would appreciate your help in determining the best solution. I don't want to make an entirely new thread or simply post a reply with the new insights, because both of those wouldn't remove the outdated information from the main post.
 
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