Editing Old Posts?

[Nuts]

So, I went to remove an old post, the content was left among a series of deleted posts. I was pointing out that an area might be sensitive, the others agreed (obviously). Now my post is the only one left that mentions the area. Once again I discover that the ability to edit old posts has been removed? Is this correct? Anyone else finding this or do I have a glitch?

[Son of a Beach]

My humble apologies for not notifying the community about this change. I normally try to keep everyone up to date with such things. This change was made several weeks ago in response to a sudden round of 3 different people deleting the contents of all or many of their own posts, with the result that several topics no longer made complete sense anymore. We came across 3 people within a space of just a few weeks, and the number of affected topics was enormous, and the effects were quite substantial.

This topic has been discussed at length some time ago, with the result at that time being to revert to allowing post editing indefinitely after a trial of disallowing editing after a short time. Back then the discussion was very much split with strong reasoning on both sides of the argument.

After lengthy discussion amongst the moderators a few weeks ago, following the discovery of more people deleting the content of all their posts than we'd previously been aware of, and of the impact it was having on forum topics, we decided to make a change. I'm sorry that I neglected to inform everyone of how this is working now.

So here's the status of self-editing and self-deleting posts now:

• People can completely delete their own posts up to 15 minutes after posting.
• People can edit their own posts up to 60 days after posting (including deleting the entire contents of their post).
• Beyond 60 days, if people would like to edit or remove their posts, they will need to PM a moderator, including a link to the post, and explain what they would like changed. We would prefer to make minor edits to your posts and avoid deleting as much as possible.

I've recently been looking at how other forums deal with this issue, and most of them have similar policies to this. I came across one forum where they charge people to change their posts after 60 days, and another where people are required to make their change requests in writing (ie, on paper).

I think that 60 days is a fairly lengthy period for allowing self-edits.

We will do our best to accommodate other edits if you send us requests. If we start getting too many requests, then we may need to consider additional steps such as those above.

[Son of a Beach]

Just to add a moderators' point of view to this discussion...

Naturally we do not like people deleting their posts or the content of their posts, particularly when those posts have been either a valuable or a referred-to part of a discussion. It is very disruptive to discussions for people doing searches or just browsing old topics.

There have been about 4 people that I'm aware of doing this over the last few months, and I can understand people feeling that it is "vandalism". I would not go that far, but I do think that it is very disruptive, and I'm disappointed to find people taking post deletion to the extent that they have done. I'm not saying they don't have good reason to do delete a number of their old posts, but I hope that they weigh up those reasons against the disruption that the deletions cause on a post-by-post basis and not just once for all posts.

There is currently no site rule regarding this, and the edit/delete permissions outlined earlier in this topic are MUCH more lenient than on many other online forums. If our lenience in this area continues to be taken advantage of in such a way that we don't think the disruption to the forums is worth the good will we are aiming to offer to the members, then edit/delete permissions will be changed to be more in line with other forums who are not so accommodating in this area.

On many forums, they offer either very short edit/delete times for members to change their own posts, or none at all. Some of them offer no exceptions, and others offer exceptions only when backed up by legal documentation, and a substantial administration fee is paid. I do not intend to ever take it to that extreme, but if the problem of disrupted topics gets any worse, then we will have no other choice but to at least tighten up the time restrictions on editing/deleting posts (and as currently - requiring a PM to a moderator to change any older posts).

[corvus]

My personal belief is that if you post and later discover you were " a goose " eat umble pie and say you were wrong ,if you need to change factual things the delete option is desirable , if it is as a result of personal attack you need to be able to defend yourself and my personal method would be to treat "same with same" however if you really feel the need to withdraw /delete so be it and if it disrupts a thread too bad as it it an open free forum and if you do not understand after deletion perhaps it was beyond you in the first place
corvus

[walkinTas]

Posting on a public forum is a bit like shouting in a crowded room. Once the words are said and heard, and especially once they have been quoted by others, it is impossible to take them back.

Members of any forum should be very careful not to breach forum rules, and where this is overlooked, moderation will usually fix it. Self moderation is best. Member's editing is a courtesy to allow members to fix posting mistakes like spelling, grammar, malformed links etc., before others see them. And you get fifteen minutes to completely change your mind.

So yes, be careful, but if you do get something factually incorrect, simply post a retraction. If there is something important that you forgot, or a fact has changed since your post, then just post a correction. I think after the initial period to fix up bloopers, then there are only a couple of reasons for editing old post. E.g: in an unguarded moment you revealed something that is essentially private (work related, or phone/email/personal details); or there is an unintended faux pas or ambiguous meaning. (You might be able to think of a couple of others). These can easily be fixed by asking an Admin/moderators to consider deleting them.

[Nuts]

Posting on a public forum is a bit like shouting in a crowded room. Once the words are said and heard, and especially once they have been quoted by others, it is impossible to take them back.

They are on this forum, this week... it hasnt been in the past and isnt the case on all forums.
The situation is fine, its good to have things clarified, but it is all done by choice, no pretending otherwise

[photohiker]

Haven't we been here before?

Just don't post anything you don't want posted, it's not that hard really.

Editing and deleting posts after someone has replied is vandalism IMO. Wholesale removal of content ie: 'content removed by poster' is wilful destruction of an historical discussion. It's mud in the eye for anyone who participated in the conversation. It degrades the value of the site, the conversation and the other participants.

Think about normal face to face communication. When you say something, others respond. You cannot take the words back, they are part of history, but if you could it would render people's responses meaningless. It may seem fine to a participant to remove their words, but look at the results: at best it makes the conversation confusing to a third party; often nonsensical and full of non sequiturs.

Nuts, I guess you're lucky I'm not the admin

Nick, 60 Days is way too long!

[Son of a Beach]

Hi Michael. I can relate to your point of view. But there are sometimes some very good reasons to be able to delete old posts. I've come across two that I can think of here during my time as admin (I'm not going to discuss those specifically ).

However, some compromise between allowing deletion of 'all' and 'nothing' is required, because some times people do take post deletion too far (in my opinion) and really do destroy the reading of a good discussion by removing their posts.

PS. I do agree that whenever possible, people should take care when posting to avoid publishing information they might later regret. There are many forms of publishing where the words can never be retracted at all (eg, emails), and people should take that kind of care at any time. Even if people do delete old posts, they can't undo the fact that those posts have been read by people, and cached by many other internet sites (such as Google).

Having said that, there are some situations where a person's circumstances change in ways that they could not have foreseen when they wrote their posts that now makes them want to delete those posts.

[Nuts]

This time it was to remove a double post, last time when I pointed something out the poster agreed and edited their post (making mine redundant). The time before that was similar in pointing out a post mentioning a fragile area. All valid reasons in everyday posts that reasonable people would agree worth having access too??

May not be something so straight forward, sensitive even, and perhaps something that the poster would prefer not to discuss with a moderator... yet we all pay the price for the Perceived mistake of one (or two?).

It's not like the average conversation Micheal, usually nobody stands taking notes and gouges them in stone.

Vandalism is about property not people.

Maybe its the IT mindset but i just don't think the outcome is worth the advantages, it's easy enough to piece together what has been said missing the contribution of one person. If it included vital facts then that's a shame but it then it could be seen as that persons 'generous' Contribution in the first place... or is thanking people for posting just lip service??

Perhaps it is how these forums Mostly work, doesn't make it 'right' just to follow suit imo..

Its not that big a deal, it will just go by the wayside once again. I Do think the moderators do a great job and cant suggest many improvements. It's just that this one gets me a bit fired up.

It's not a scientific Journal, just a collection of thoughts. Hopefully the site doesn't become more 'sterile' with time. I admire forthright people and aspire to be like them..

[photohiker]

We could go on all day...

I agree with your valid reasons, those aren't the sorts of edits I was referring to.

Vandalism is about defacing or destroying something. In this case, the something is an historical record of a discussion created and kept online. I will refer you to other online groups who take it seriously such as wikipedia: Wikipedia:Vandalism

I have no problem with people adjusting their historical comments in an attempt to fix a discussion broken by another party removing or editing their post. That is an example of the disruption caused by vandalism. Unfortunately, we don't all get to find out that we have orphan posts that need fixing because we probably don't have cause to re-read topics from the beginning that often. Having an edit use by date is a good idea to limit this damage IMO.

it's easy enough to piece together what has been said missing the contribution of one person

If you care to look, I'm sure you can find threads on this forum that have been rendered to nonsense by this type of activity. Think not of your or my looking at the thread, but of someone new to walking and this site trying to find answers and following a conversation that is riddled with deletia. Not easy.

It's not like the average conversation Micheal, usually nobody stands taking notes and gouges them in stone.

I do believe this is like a normal conversation. In a normal conversation the taking of notes and gouging in stone is occurring in our memories. The main difference is that there is a written record of it, so we don't rely on that feeble memory, we can actually check what each participant actually wrote. Perhaps it's more like an exchange of letters. It's not as spontaneous as a face to face conversation, but that also means that participants are likely to post more considered thoughts than they might in an immediate conversation.

People post information and opinion here of their own free will. It is valued by all of us, and often thanked for in the thread. It becomes part of the forum knowledge that all can draw from. I accept Nick's suggestion that there are valid reasons for removal of a participant's posts, that's his call and I'm sure he would be thinking carefully before acting on such a request.

[Nuts]

Yer, ok, look, I likely had a thousand or so posts when free editing was allowed. The rules changed without practical warning. I doubt that was planned to get forum content and the site going (or do hope not)...

The point here wasn't to discuss my circumstance or any unusual reasons i might have to need to edit posts ( mostly stick to gear questions, short of offending someones gear choices I don't have a lot of serious occasion to go back and edit)

Tbh, i'm not really sure now what the point Was Making decisions based on a minority doing the wrong thing stands on pretty weak moral ground but is common these days.
Oddly, again, I seem to be in a minority in giving a *&%$#! about this particular issue so...

[Azza]

Well you can debate the

Haven't we been here before?

Just don't post anything you don't want posted, it's not that hard really.

Well you would be surprised...
I know of several circumstance where nut cases online (not Nuts ) have tracked down people from forums and identified them and proceeded to harass them in real life.
Posting propaganda online, and actually contacting employers, business associates and friends in an attempt to damage their reputation.
All over some comments that they disagreed with.

The dangers of posting your opinion online I guess.....

[Nuts]

You have made a point that prompted my post azza but i wont elaborate...

As I said, the purpose wasn't what causes 'me' concern, not really abt people doing the wrong thing, more about the Majority doing the right thing.

[photohiker]

Well you would be surprised...

Well, no, I wouldn't.

My opposition to deletion of posts and removal of content is not based on the instances you or Nuts have referred to.

Once again, I am sure there are legitimate reasons for removal of content, and I am equally sure that the moderation team is up to the job. This is no reason to leave posts editable and delete-able IMO.

[Son of a Beach]

You guys are both right. One solution would cause inconvenience to people who have legitimate reasons to edit/delete posts; the other solution would cause inconvenience to people reading topics that have had posts edited/deleted 'illegitimately'.

Unfortunately, there is no win/win solution.

As is often the case, and which I also find painful, a policy has been put in place for the sake of a minority of trouble-makers because their actions would affect many other people who would use the facility more sensibly. However, it has been deemed necessary, because that minority of trouble-makers can have a big affect on a much larger number of people (and when they do, there is no way to repair the damage they've done without also deleting many good legitimate posts/topics).

It is a less than ideal compromise, but people who do have legitimate reasons to edit/delete old posts can still apply to have this done (although I understand that in some cases they would prefer to do it themselves without drawing moderator attention to it).

[Son of a Beach]

Just a few notes for anybody who may find and read this topic in future, wondering how to deal with similar issues:

• Although I always mention the possibility of an "administration fee" for requests to moderators to edit old posts on a member's behalf, this has never actually been charged, as is unlikely to be charged unless it is either a very complicated set of edits, or we start getting too many requests of this nature. I only mention it so that if it does become necessary, it won't be too much of a shock, and also to discourage people taking advantage of us too much.
• If people wish to edit their own old posts without drawing moderator attention to those particular posts, please contact an admin by private message, including the number of posts to be edited. Sometimes there are ways that we can arrange for this to be done, but it is a very last resort, and something that I prefer to avoid.
• If any of this gets abused by any member, that member is very unlikely to receive moderator help in this area again.

As Nuts mentioned in an earlier post, a more suitable solution would be to assign per-user permissions for being able to edit own posts. Unfortunately, this is not currently possible. This permission could then be assigned to trusted, long-term contributing members. I will put in a feature request for this with the software developers, but it is unlikely to get much attention, as I know the developers are already way behind schedule for the next feature release.

This topic has now been merged with two previous (recovered & trimmed) topics about the same issue, which include some history on how we came to the current settings.

[walkinTas]

I do understand that from time to time people will choose to share items of some substance - a photo, or an extract for an ebook or online article they have written, or part of a blog or wiki entry - and I accept that these more substantial works have all the normal copyright protection that law affords to publications. I also believe that law makers need to clean up the laws around the use of electronic media and the Internet. The laws we have were made for simpler times.

I consider forum postings to be just conversation, and therefore not something we should wish to protect under copyright law. And, where it is not just conversation, the author should think very carefully before posting on a public forum.

[Son of a Beach]

I think forum discussions are much like group emails, where each person in the group keeps using "Reply to all" instead of just "Reply" so that the entire group receives all the emails in the conversation (a common practice at times).

(Incidentally, I do know of one email system that has a "feature" to retract an email, but of course it's useless most of the time. If the email has already been read, it cannot be retracted, and if the email has gone to any account(s) on another email server, it cannot be retracted whether it has been read or not. Of course, this feature contravenes the official SMTP (email) protocol, but this particular vendor has never been terribly good with being compatible with protocols or with cross-platform compatibility.)

Having said that, I'm not sure that comparisons with other forms of conversation and communication are useful for setting policy for the forums. Although, they are useful for helping people to think about what they write in the forum posts.

[walkinTas]

Email is another excellent example. "You get a chance to type it. You get a chance to read it. You get a chance to preview it. You can edit it indefinitely prior to submitting it. You can even save it as a draft and review and re-edit it as much as you wish. Once you click submit, wave goodbye, it is no longer yours." Yet, almost every week (so it seems) I see an email retracting a previous statement in a previous email - And we use the system by the popular vendor with the retracting ability built in. The lesson is simple - take a bit more time to think and edit and preview and review before you click submit.

[Son of a Beach]

In fairness to those wanting to be able to edit/delete old posts, it is not always a matter of being able to predict how the post may be read/interpretted/used in the future at the time of submission. In particular, when circumstances change, the ways that some posts can be used against a person change. We've had at least two cases on these forums (that I know of) where people have had situations that could be affected by their posts in ways that could not have been forseen at the times the posts were submitted. However, we do have means for dealing with such situations, which we work through on a case-by-case basis with the affected members, when requested.

[walkinTas]

Having said that, I'm not sure that comparisons with other forms of conversation and communication are useful for setting policy for the forums. Although, they are useful for helping people to think about what they write in the forum posts.

That's an important point! There are a lot of things to consider when it comes to setting policies. My appeal is for members (everyone) to consider and think about what they are doing when they post on a forum. What does it mean to post in a forum? What is your attitude towards the "purpose" of a forum? As I said, in my mind it is a conversation medium, not a publication medium. Though I accept that the lines are sometimes blurry.

However, we do have means for dealing with such situations, which we work through on a case-by-case basis with the affected members, when requested.

+1 Yep, so if the need arises, just ask.

[photohiker]

We've had at least two cases on these forums (that I know of) where people have had situations that could be affected by their posts in ways that could not have been forseen at the times the posts were submitted.

So with 3842 users and something like 100,000 posts, there have been less than a handful of instances, and there is a method available to us to fix the problem should it arise.

Thanks for the perspective. What was the question again?

[Son of a Beach]

Actually, I've just thought of a third instance (still just a handful, though). But I mention it because this third instance is one for which I can discuss the cause of the problem without any privacy issues...

A member once contacted me letting me know that after having moved their online gallery to another online system, all the photos that were embedded in their forum posts using URLs for the old gallery were no longer working and they wanted to fix them all (and there were quite a lot). After some discussion, the first remedy I offered them turned out to be not appropriate, but the second solution enabled the URLs to all be fixed to use the new gallery, and the photos were all restored to their posts. As far as I know, the member was happy with the outcome.

Note that the reasons that I'm not openly explaining what the potential solutions for such cases are, is that they are open to serious abuse. If a member was to abuse such an opportunity, it would be unlikely that they'd be given any further opportunities.