Feature Request ... Block editing of first post in thread

@Webmaster...

Is there any way to block people from editing the first post in a thread?

In the last few days we've had several people either empty their first message or re-edit it with their "final version" code. Salem has restored some of it, but some of it is just gone.

When a person asks a question, gets their answers then empties the first message they effectively render that thread "dead weight" as any ensuing conversation no longer has context.

When a person gets their code working then updates that first message the rest of the conversation appears nonsensical. Anyone looking at that thread will simply wonder what the heck we were talking about.

Either way it destroys the forum's worth as a research tool.

So, can this be done?

I think there's an option or mod in VB to disallow edits after replies have been made. It affects not only the first post. I always found this feature appealing.

Whoops, I voted no when I meant to vote yes here. Oh well. And that can't be edited, lol.

Strongly disagree with this, as it is again the kind of rule that involves penalizing everyone because of the misbehavior of a few. By doing, that, you are essentially (and ironically) giving control over to the few who misbehave. From then on, if someone wants a new rule for some reason (eg: in order to penalize everyone else), all they have to do is come up with a way of abusing some potential and then do until they get enough attention.

I edit most of my posts for one reason or another, usually within the first ten minutes, but sometimes later. I don't edit significant things out tho, and am annoyed by the behavior CommonTater describes because I think even after a problem is solved, the material should remain for posterity.

The first post in a thread is particularly important and can be more difficult to write than a reply. I don't think we should discourage people from refining their thoughts by making editing impossible. I have seen forums where that is a policy and I doubt the few problems it solved make up for the many problems it created.

So I think a better idea would be to make a rule against the removal of significant material, and people who observe such and are upset by it can let a mod know, and things can be resolved on a case by case basis.

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Originally Posted by CommonTater

the rest of the conversation appears nonsensical. Anyone looking at that thread will simply wonder what the heck we were talking about.

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Just as an observation Tater, I have witnessed you mass delete your posts during a discussion. I hope you don't make that a habit, as -- regardless of the motivation -- it amounts to the same thing that you find irritating in others.

The poll is missing an alternative for, "Yes, there are legitimate reasons to edit a post"

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Originally Posted by MK27

Just as an observation Tater, I have witnessed you mass delete your posts during a discussion. I hope you don't make that a habit, as -- regardless of the motivation -- it amounts to the same thing that you find irritating in others.

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I would not do so without reason... There have been times I got off on the wring tangent and then when I realized it, deleted the posts so that the conversation could continue in the right direction. Other times I've deleted messages to avoid someone who's obviously looking for a fight. However; I would never delete anything without good reasons...

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Originally Posted by Subsonics

The poll is missing an alternative for, "Yes, there are legitimate reasons to edit a post"

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Then you should vote Yes... people should be able to edit the first post.
The text descriptions were just a bit of humour... you have No, Yes, and Don't Care options to choose from.

This isn't going to work for me. I edit my posts too often.

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Originally Posted by CommonTater

I would never delete anything without good reasons...

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Of course, and there are good reasons to edit an OP, so it should not be banned.

BTW, the good reasons you listed don't sound right to me:

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Originally Posted by CommonTater

There have been times I got off on the wring tangent and then when I realized it, deleted the posts so that the conversation could continue in the right direction.

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Ah, so after recognizing you have de-railed a thread, you figure the best thing to do is de-rail it even further by deleting a bunch of posts, creating a string of apparent nonsense reactions to the posts you deleted. That's not confusing at all -- good thinking.

Maybe an apology would be more appropriate. We all make mistakes, but we don't all sweep the pieces under the rug afterward.

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Other times I've deleted messages to avoid someone who's obviously looking for a fight.

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How someone reacts to your posts is not your responsibility, and you are not obliged to react to them either. Innocent people do not need to hide evidence, and deleting your posts strongly implies to me that it was not about "someone looking for a fight", but about someone with potentially legitimate criticism of what you have posted.

I deduce from this that you have a tendency to act before you think. Nobody is perfect. But while choosing to delete posts may mitigate some of your embarrassment, I do not think it is a responsible way of dealing with your problem.

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Originally Posted by CommonTater

Then you should vote Yes... people should be able to edit the first post.
The text descriptions were just a bit of humour... you have No, Yes, and Don't Care options to choose from.

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Yes I know, I attempted to give some background to my choice with some humor as well. But, perhaps it could be tweaked to only affect users with < x posts, which could probably be pretty low, say 10 or so.

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Originally Posted by MK27

Ah, so after recognizing you have de-railed a thread,

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Talk to the hand my friend. I am NOT getting into another stupid debate about nothing with you... and derailing THIS thread.

Go troll someone who actually gives a crap.

The problem with blocking edits completely is that they can't go back and add code tags or indentation or whatever - they would have to have a separate post for that.

How about a [+] Show Edits expander that you can click to see revisions of the main post in the thread or something? I don't know. It's bad when they just go back and completely remove the code from the first post. But sometimes they need to fix indentation and such.


Quzah.

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Originally Posted by quzah

The problem with blocking edits completely is that they can't go back and add code tags or indentation or whatever

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Hmmm. Something to consider.

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How about a [+] Show Edits expander that you can click to see revisions of the main post in the thread or something?

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Like VCS's or wikis? That would be great, but I doubt VB can facilitate this. Even if it could, stuff like that adds significant overhead in terms of both storage space and CPU time for each edit. Then no one will even look at the record for 99% of posts.

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Like VCS's or wikis? That would be great, but I doubt VB can facilitate this. Even if it could, stuff like that adds significant overhead in terms of both storage space and CPU time for each edit. Then no one will even look at the record for 99% of posts.

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O_o

What we really need is a "Reclaim" feature for moderators. Same great taste as a perpetual edit stack but less filling.

Soma

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Originally Posted by Mario F.

I think there's an option or mod in VB to disallow edits after replies have been made. It affects not only the first post. I always found this feature appealing.

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this if its an option

Or the person who replies first could just quote the first post entirely. ;)


Quzah.

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Originally Posted by quzah

Or the person who replies first could just quote the first post entirely. ;)

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But then I might have to quote the dude. :childwithrunnynosesmiley:

Seriously, that might not be a bad idea in the case of "OMG HOMEWORK HELP!!1one!!11!" threads.

Soma

I'm in favor of minor editing (adding code tags for instance), but I'm against wholesale editing of the first posts. That's just a loss to the board.

I'm not at all worried about any editing by the subsequent posters. That freedom is a good thing, imo.

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Originally Posted by quzah

The problem with blocking edits completely is that they can't go back and add code tags or indentation or whatever - they would have to have a separate post for that.

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Which would be resolved when we implement automatic code highlighting / indentation. I am sure we can all see the value in that.

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Originally Posted by quzah

How about a [+] Show Edits expander that you can click to see revisions of the main post in the thread or something? I don't know. It's bad when they just go back and completely remove the code from the first post. But sometimes they need to fix indentation and such.

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Too much effort with very little reward I think. How about a simple verify post, e.g. when you click 'submit' it just shows you the code(preview mode) and asks you to verify. This is pretty standard for most online transactions and as such everyone is use to it.

Now, we often argue about the "how it affects me" ideology here. What effort is really wasted in a couple of minutes review for an initial post? Honestly, we should all be doing this already, and if we miss something so what? Will the world end? Will I think MK27 isn't a great programmer? I think not.

Analyzing this from the other end however, there are many advantages to making the first post locked:

1. Prevents confusion from the new influx of personnel editing their posts. You may say this never happens however we are seeing a new breed of people coming in here. Adapt or be left behind people.
2. Saves the mods from restoring original posts and locking threads. This has been occuring more frequently as well and would free the mods up to plot "world domination".
3. Simple fix. Nothing complicated or crazy options to deal with. Simple, you cannot edit the first post.
4. Most of the arguments against this come from people who are never the OPs in the programming forum. I think that says the most about this debate.

So honestly, I know we all like to argue; but philosophical and sociological arguments aside, it makes no sense to dispute this.

A compromise might be to not allow editing after a repy has been posted...
Let them change it all they want until the thread contains 2 or more messages, then it's locked.

Mods can go back and restore an "offending" edit and maybe issue a warning. Why not just report it when it happens?

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Originally Posted by Fordy

Mods can go back and restore an "offending" edit and maybe issue a warning. Why not just report it when it happens?

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With all due respect, I posted that as my reason #2 against. Why should you guys have to waste your time doing that, since we are seeing the behavior happen a lot more, when you guys should be planning on world domination and supression of the "free speech" on C board?

I'm going to bump this and ask again that it be given consideration... the problem seems to be worsening.

I was actually going to bump this myself.

Why don't they just change it so after the first 30 minutes or so, you can't edit a post any more?


Quzah.

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Originally Posted by AndrewHunter

With all due respect, I posted that as my reason #2 against. Why should you guys have to waste your time doing that, since we are seeing the behavior happen a lot more, when you guys should be planning on world domination and supression of the "free speech" on C board?

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You are against that because mods will have more work?

I think the current system works pretty well.

Sure, there is the occasional problem, but I don't think we should be like governments - those who just can't resist implementing new rules just because something annoys someone. Sooner or later, you end up with a mass of contradictions where doing "this" is allowed (but generally considered to be the wrong thing), whereas doing "that" is prevented (but generally considered to be the right thing).

For every 100 people who edit their posts to clean up typos and other things, there will always be an idiot to trash their entire thread once they've got their free cookie. And if users can't edit their posts, then the outcome might be lots of "report post" messages for the mods to fix typos, or repeated posts with fixed typos (which some regulars would no doubt flag as duplicate posts). For every new rule, there is always an unintended consequence.

The "last edited by" line at the bottom of an edited post is a URL (for us mods) which allows us to compare changes across edits. Adding a check which say prevents users from changing/deleting (adding a block of code would still be allowed) more than say 10% of the lines would allow everyone to continue to tinker with the presentation and wording, but prevent the wholesale deletion or trashing of the substance of a post.

But what do you "diff" against - the previous post, or the original? If it's the original, then there is the instant anomaly of where you can add the code in an edit AND then delete it again, whereas if the code were in the original post this could NOT be done. If you diff with just the previous, then people could still delete everything by chipping away at the post over a series of edits.

Perhaps if this "last edited" line also contained the diff stats (Added 2, changed 0, deleted 100), then everyone could instantly see what was going on. But again, is that with respect to the previous post or the original?

Should we even go as far as say wiki, where everybody can view the entire history of edits?

> I'm going to bump this and ask again that it be given consideration... the problem seems to be worsening.
I didn't see any new "reported posts" in my inbox.

Salem, my friend... in all due respect I have to disagree with you.

First I feel you are overreacting by more than a tad at the suggestion of limiting certain "freedoms" (priveledges, really). I want nothing even close to totalitarian and have always enjoyed the rather free wheeling nature of these forums. But this is a real problem that several of us have discussed, mostly in PMs but occasionally in open messages.

My suggestion was simply in relation to that first post... no other... and I don't believe it is an unreasonable thing to do. Many of us work hard promoting C (etc) on these boards, we volunteer out time to help the next generation of programmers get off to a good start. It is very annoying to have someone continually updating the first post with changes in their source code. It reduces the generosity of several people to the level of gibberish. Any future reader who opens that thread is going to wonder what the heck we were on about. Moreover; it denies future readers the opportunity to learn from the progression of messages in a thread... The first message sets the stage for the ensuing conversation. Editing it or deleting it's content destroys all context for the discussion and it helps nobody!

Moreover, I think you'll find simply disabling the edit feature on first messages is going to result in fewer reported posts and less work for your loving moderators. Really, life would be a lot simpler for you guys if you didn't have to review history, make decisions and take action... on something that shouldn't have happened in the first place.

Having reviewed this entire thread, I remain unconvinced the current system is working as it should. In my opinion that first message should be a historical artifact, unchangeable in support of the following discussion.

So what makes the first post special?

Some noob posts a homework question (without code), gets prompted with "show your effort", which they do so in a reply, then later on deletes that reply when they're done. How does this help future readers?

Posting the question, then replying with the code seems just as common as "here is my question and code".

> Moreover, I think you'll find simply disabling the edit feature on first messages is going to result in fewer reported posts and less work for your loving moderators.
Personally, I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill.
Right now, I wished I had kept all my reported post emails so I could data mine it to show you just what people report. Aside from the one recent incident of post editing (which we fixed), there is just a steady trickle of "spam", "language", "off-topic", "plzhelpme" type reports.

Now, if it were a systemic problem happening on a daily or weekly basis (like for example, people posting without code tags), then I'd be in favour of trying to do something about it.

Which means either it doesn't happen that often at all, or the readership who might grumble about 1st post edits just don't care enough to move the mouse to the "report post" icon and click it. So is it really about "I don't like first post edits, and I can't be bothered to press the report post, so wouldn't it be nice if..."?

A single incident, no matter how "offensive" it might seem to you is not a good way of determining rules. "legislate in haste repent at leisure" springs to mind.

And speaking of "less work", I find that the thing which takes the MOST time on this forum is having these kinds of discussions about the minutiae of forum rules etc. I suppose I could just ignore you and then be accused of being something else.

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Originally Posted by Salem

Sure, there is the occasional problem, but I don't think we should be like governments - those who just can't resist implementing new rules just because something annoys someone. Sooner or later, you end up with a mass of contradictions where doing "this" is allowed (but generally considered to be the wrong thing), whereas doing "that" is prevented (but generally considered to be the right thing).

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Hmm... I agree this does make sense. We've all seen it happen before on other places.

Another problem with this solution is that the people we are concerned with -- people who habitually erase all of an OP after their problem seems solved because "they don't want people stealing their code", etc. will find out one way or another about the policy and its mechanism (eg, by asking). From then on you'll see them do this:

FIRST POST: Hi I have a question....

SECOND POST: [specific details I want to erase later]

So to really get rid of the problem, we will eventually have to do something like eliminating editing entirely or have a time limit for all editing (which either way, would cause someone like me to rapidly lose interest in the entire board and move to somewhere more user friendly).

This is, as my British relatives are fond of saying, "cutting off your nose to spite your face". I know it is irritating and inconsiderate, but I think it will be much less irritating to you if you just forget about it. There is no perfect system, there will always be a few percent of people who find a way to abuse something. Considering it works very well for everyone else, you should not let the few bother you or take their actions personally. Who cares?

Alternatively... disallow editing on any post more than (say) 10 minutes old...

After some consideration, I've taken Quzah and CommonTater's suggestion of reducing the post edit window. It is now 60 minutes; this should be plenty of time for someone to go back to fix up a post.

So posts are non-editable after 60 minutes?

NICE!

Thanks.

Correct, except for moderators and admins, posts are no longer editable after an hour.

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Originally Posted by webmaster

Correct, except for moderators and admins, posts are no longer editable after an hour.

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Excellent. Thanks again!

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Originally Posted by webmaster

Correct, except for moderators and admins, posts are no longer editable after an hour.

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Grrrrr....well I guess I can live with that...grrrr....:mad:

<edit>Fordy was here....</edit>

:mad: Seeing posts like this, I'd be tempted to change the edit lock to 5 min! :devil:

Oh whatever. Nobody even helped that guy.

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Originally Posted by GReaper

:mad: Seeing posts like this, I'd be tempted to change the edit lock to 5 min! :devil:

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Quote the first post!