Editing Posts - A Suggestion to Xan

[Maddy]

In the past, it seems as though there was a certain period of time in which a member could edit a post without a "post edited X times" notice appearing below it. That "free edit" period was useful for cleaning up spelling and grammatical errors, or for revising the wording of a post for the sake of clarity and overall readability.

This morning, I attempted to make some minor copy-editing changes to a post, all within the first few minutes, and a message immediately appeared below the post showing that I had edited it three times. When such a message appears, can create the eyebrow-raising impression that the author has made substantive changes to the post after-the-fact. Sometimes, particularly when the post is part of a debate, it can look as though the author is trying to gain an unfair argumentative advantage by revising his or her post retroactively in light of the other posters' subsequent comments.

May I suggest that there be a certain period of time (15 minutes?) in which a poster can tinker with the wording of his or her post without it showing up as an actual "edit?"

[Xan]

Maddy,

I believe that has something to do with whether or not anybody has replied to, or possibly even seen, the original post. If it's unseen, then you can edit away without that warning. Once it's been seen, then it's only fair to the people who have seen it to note that it's been edited. Sadly, there really isn't an automatic way to detect minor copy-editing.

Changing it (unless there's an extension that does so) would require hacking the code which I'm loathe to do, because that means tracking that change every time an update to the software comes out.

[Mark Leavy]

From my experience, it seems I get the edited notice if I submit the change after someone else has posted on the thread (which, of course, can happen while you're making your changes).

That seems like a reasonable rule. If it happens, I usually go back and add in a comment explaining what the edit was.

[Maddy]

Okay, that explains it. Somebody did, indeed post immediately after mine this morning. Glad to hear that under normal circumstances you can tinker with a post for a spell before the "edited" message shows up.

[Xan]

Thanks for chiming in, Mark. I wasn't sure whether merely viewing triggered it, or whether posting was required. Sounds like it's posting.

It does seem like it's fair to have that appear if somebody has already posted a reply.