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Request: rank for modifying posts forever

Posts on a web forum really seem like the wrong tool for this job. Have you considered a shared document or a a shared spreadsheet?
 
mbbrutman said:
Posts on a web forum really seem like the wrong tool for this job. Have you considered a shared document or a a shared spreadsheet?
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To be completely frank I do believe it is absurd we cannot edit our posts here after a certain time limit. I do understand that it serves to prevent spam from new accounts, but vetted members should not be subjected to such a restriction. This is the only forum I have ever participated in that does this.
 
mbbrutman said:
Posts on a web forum really seem like the wrong tool for this job. Have you considered a shared document or a a shared spreadsheet?
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I dont know any of thise, i never used any of such. I have libreoffice on my computers and thats all the relevant software i have.
 
maxtherabbit said:
To be completely frank I do believe it is absurd we cannot edit our posts here after a certain time limit.
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I don't think it's absurd. Forum posts are like a conversation. Often people respond to forum posts depending on what someone has previously said. If people are able to constantly change their previous posts, then things will quickly get confusing.

@Geri, perhaps something like a wiki may be more suitable, and then you can link to the wiki in your forum post.
 
gonk23 said:
I don't think it's absurd. Forum posts are like a conversation. Often people respond to forum posts depending on what someone has previously said. If people are able to constantly change their previous posts, then things will quickly get confusing.
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it is of course the responsibility of the user to be reasonable with their edits, but to disallow it entirely does much more to promote the spread of disinformation and confusion especially with respect to OPs
 
Unfortunately even "vetted members" can go bonkers and do crazy things from time to time. A single edit at the beginning of a conversation can make it look like eveyone was talking about something other than they actually were. Not very nice.

Also, edits normally don't bump a topic as a new post. If an old post gets edited too few eyes will see it, and it could contain unwanted stuff - better to keep edits short enough that any changes are still on the New Posts list where people can see them.

Allowing editing very old posts would be extra incentive for spammers to try and take over old accounts, or try to become "vetted" with the intention of creating hidden spam. This stuff happens. Limiting editing time keeps things sane.

I also agree that using a discussion forum to host data for something that regularly changes is probably not the right tool for the job. It is probably something you would want to host on a web site of your own.
 
Once threads reach a certain length, you can be sure that no one is going to read them in their entirety. Being able to update the first post with the most current information prevents people from posting the same (answered) questions repeatedly, and also allows mistakes to be corrected to limit the spread of falsehood.
 
We allow people to edit posts for a reasonable but short amount of time to take care of obvious typographic errors. But unrestricted editing has been abused a few times in the past and it's just not worth the hassle. Web forum postings here are generally like a running conversation. Going back and revising old posts makes things confusing. This has been debated ad-nauseam and we're not going to open it for debate again. Please respect our judgement and don't assume that we make decisions to torture people.

For something that needs to be frequently edited and updated I would look into Google Drive; it allows you to post documents and spreadsheets online, and even allows you to invite other people to edit the work. That's an appropriate tool for maintaining a catalog of a collection. If you have an aversion to Google choose the cloud company or web hosting company that works for you.


Mike
 
Geri said:
I dont know any of thise, i never used any of such. I have libreoffice on my computers and thats all the relevant software i have.
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Normally I use something like Google Docs but it's usually to share with a select group of people. However, as mike mentioned, you (or those accessing the document) might have an aversion to some (or all) of these type of sites, in which case I'd point you to something like pastebin.com where you can have a text document that you can share and folks don't need an account to view it. You can always update it on that site.

Chuck(G) said:
Or just put it in a vcfed blog and point to it.
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This would work as well, though I'm not sure what 'point to it' means.. if it's in a blog, theres no reason to 'point to it' elsewhere.
 
maxtherabbit said:
To be completely frank I do believe it is absurd we cannot edit our posts here after a certain time limit. I do understand that it serves to prevent spam from new accounts, but vetted members should not be subjected to such a restriction. This is the only forum I have ever participated in that does this.
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Then you've never been on a forum where a user decided to be vindictive and go back and change the text of all his posts to (DELETED!).

Forums aren't always meant to be wiki pages or blogs. Don't use doom9 as an example.
 
Trixter said:
Then you've never been on a forum where a user decided to be vindictive and go back and change the text of all his posts to (DELETED!).

Forums aren't always meant to be wiki pages or blogs. Don't use doom9 as an example.
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I actually have seen that happen several times, I consider it a small price to pay

I use forums for a wide range of topics, from firearms to automotive stuff to arcade stuff to amateur radio, and literally none of the other probably 20+ forums of which I'm a member restrict edits like this place.

Their forum, their rules though, so I will just accept it
 
I was surprised when I discovered that editing is limited on this site. I have subscribed heavily to another site where editing is never disabled and there has been very little malicious alteration of posts on it. Anyone who did this was soon ignored and went away.

On this site I found the restriction particularly irritating when display of an image on one of my posts failed to work for a technical reason and I had to write a second post containing the image when someone told me. On that other site I could simply have posted "I've fixed it," but on this site the faulty post has to remain in place. Also I noticed an error in a diagram that I posted but as I can't replace the image I have just left it. Further along the thread I mention the error but that does nothing to correct the image itself.

When I have gone to the trouble of posting information I will often include a link to that post in later posts in order to save repeating myself elsewhere. It is therefore important that the original post is correct as it is the only one that will contain that information. People may not read back through long threads but they will read an old post if directed to it by a new link. One can never be sure which posts are likely to need to be referenced again later, so it would be impractical to store them in a different fashion in a place where they could be edited later. When posts are viewed this way it is inappropriate to regard a thread as a simple running dialogue.

The only way to determine the real situation may be to enable unlimited edits for a while and see what actually happens. Otherwise you may just be using the ointment that keeps the elephants away. (I don't know how well known that expression is but, as there are no wild elephants here in Britain, to us it means doing something that is actually unnecessary, which can only be proved by stopping.) That said, I can understand that there may be a risk that moderators may not become aware that old posts have been edited maliciously, but if that is a problem then it is a failing of the vBulletin software in not providing a monitoring facility. (Actually that other site that allows unlimited editing is very well moderated, so some people can do it apparently.) vBulletin was evidently developed originally for simple running dialogues and it is unfortunate that it is still so popular and is now used for more complex purposes that ought to use other web tools that are now more conventional. I know this is a site for vintage computers but that doesn't mean that the software running it has to be vintage as well.

Having reviewed and edited this post many times I will now post it apprehensively knowing that I won't be able to edit it later. No, actually perhaps I ought to read it yet again first, just to be sure.

P.S.
(not that postscripts are actually possible if editing is restricted ...)
A friend of mine, who is a lifelong vintage computer enthusiast and much celebrated by those who know him, tried to join this community but his first post was evidently regarded by the moderators as trite, him being a very jovial person, and was deleted by them. He never tried again, being a very busy man, which was entirely to the site's detriment and also that of my H200 resurrection thread, as he was a key person in making my project viable. His career takes him around the world giving talks on his specialist subject and he always seeks out the local computer museums on his travels, so is very knowledgeable about the global situation in vintage computing. It is evidently important that moderators don't get too paranoid and stringent in their role.
 
RobS said:
A friend of mine, who is a lifelong vintage computer enthusiast and much celebrated by those who know him, tried to join this community but his first post was evidently regarded by the moderators as trite, him being a very jovial person, and was deleted by them. He never tried again, being a very busy man, which was entirely to the site's detriment and also that of my H200 resurrection thread, as he was a key person in making my project viable. His career takes him around the world giving talks on his specialist subject and he always seeks out the local computer museums on his travels, so is very knowledgeable about the global situation in vintage computing. It is evidently important that moderators don't get too paranoid and stringent in their role.
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Well said.
 
Stone said:
Well said.
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To be fair I did get an explanation at the time. See HERE.

Marcel Van Herk, the "victim" of this event, is an easy chap to find on the Internet. HERE's an overview of his activities. It is sobering to think how many lives have been saved around the world as a result of this jovial chap's research in radiotherapy. Getting a bad reception here was hardly significant compared to Britain's treatment of him and his family. As we have now left the European Union and they are Dutch nationals they will have to apply for permission to continue to live and work here, which I suspect will be very much a formality given his status, but even so he is extremely annoyed on principle. Well, the British authorities didn't give Alan Turing, who also worked at Manchester University of course, a particularly fair deal in life either, to put it mildly, so nothing's new there.

Back in 2017 Marcel told me that he had acquired a Data General Nova 1210 to restore. This was a significant project for him as it was the type of computer used in the world's first CT scanner back in 1972, so directly important to the history of his specialist subject.

So now we are well off topic. Sorry about that. It's time for my lunch anyway.
 
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