Einar Saukas wrote: ↑Wed Jan 10, 2018 1:11 am
Hikaru wrote: ↑Tue Jan 09, 2018 9:48 pmOne of the reasons for this thread is precisely the fact that, as far as I can remember, there weren't any sort of limits of this sort on the old WoS whatsoever. On the contrary, it wasn't until the forum imitation of the new 'WoS' that this practice really took root and became a noticeable annoyance in 'everyday life'.
I definitely remember people not being able to edit old posts at the time Martijn was still active. For instance:
https://www.worldofspectrum.org/forums/ ... ent_590860
I'm sure there are older examples but it's hard to find anything without proper searches.
Alright, so Alessandro (the original poster) has attempted to update the head post in a thread some 7 months since its original publication. If anything, it shows that a kind of limitation is definitely in effect. And this is a good example of inconveniences brought by this sort of limitation I'd say. However, it's hard to tell anything else from it, such as: how long is the edit period? Is this just for the opening posts, or does it also affect regular posts?
In theory, I guess it's possible to think of a fairly lengthy period of time, after which an edit could be considered a kind of a necro-edit. It can be argued that no-one is reasonably going to see the result of that kind of edit in the present ... etc etc ... and personally I can
maybe just about see that point. But having no limitation is orders better regardless, because it is a qualitative difference.
Nomad wrote: ↑Wed Jan 10, 2018 1:51 am
Over time the amount of users will increase, and people are people so inevitably there will be some sort of a personality conflict/intellectual disagreement over something or other and it will result in on or more parties getting butthurt/trying to prove a point and either retroactively editing a bunch of posts to 'win' the argument in question or go the 'scorched earth' policy and remove every post they ever wrote with a suitably angry message in its place denouncing the person/website and their ancestors and berating everyone else for not seeing things the same way. That happens on all forums that allow unlimited edits - it's just a matter of time; what with human nature being what it is its an inevitable outcome.
Risk is a part of the deal with laying the groundwork for trust naturally. But the reward for this is far greater, and is entirely worth it. A superior resource with a choice will naturally tend to go against, and challenge, the conventions that came to characterize the POS that is the modern internet, starting with its headline banner of 'Nobody Cares' and playing population arithmetics. - Although I do agree it's a mindset that is far too easy to get trapped in.
If there is anyone that has the privilege of that choice, it is the Spectrum Community.
If this is not what we seek, then we're essentially discussing arbitrary limitations that make little sense, vs
more arbitrary limitations that make even less sense, while also apparently having to deal with deep & philosophical questions that you wouldn't normally think would arise in real life, such as 'why would you want to the ability to edit your own posts anyway'. >.>
Nomad wrote: ↑Wed Jan 10, 2018 2:41 am
If everyone had unlimited post changes, you can have a situation where a guy discovers some radical new technique that changes how people code for the spectrum. Spends tens/hundreds of posts explaining the ins out outs of the technique, answering questions, giving examples. Then one day he picks up his toys and leaves, deletes everything and then you loose not only the person - but all of the posts also. And everyone suffers.
Nah, that's science fiction. In practice, 2-3 people are able to fully appreciate what happened, one guy falls into denial, the rest are busy playing Manic Miner. God's in his heaven, all's right with the world, the person in question has of course known this in advance before s/he even started to work on the technique some years prior. - Couldn't decide if this counts as a plot twi- pfft, of course not. No one suffers. c: