I can edit my recent posts, but when I tried editing an older post to add a warning somebody just posted today, I can’t. Apparently there is a limit to how old a post can be.
Now, having myself administrated a forum for years, I fully understand the rationale for this (spammers love editing old, innocent posts to discretely add spam links for Google to find), but I think by now you all know I’m all kind of things, but certainly not a spammer biding his time…
Is this a bug or a fatality?
I can’t find the explanation of what users are supposed to be able to do or not (I know there is one, but I forgot where), so I have to ask.
Thanks. Could we have it added to the FAQ or somehow linked where one might easily find it?
To get back on topic, the one month edit limit is IMHO a little strict/unnecessary. One single month? What is the big difference between editing a post 1 month old and one 6 months old? -scratches head-
On edit deadlines, well … I cannot immediately see much of a difference between 1 and 6 months either. However, I have come to think that the Discourse folks have certainly got more experience with and spent some thought on these things that they based their guidelines on, so I tend to think they are simply wiser than I am on this.
I’m pretty sure they just wanted some progression, so that some user levels seemed more special than others…
I have quite some forum experience myself (8 years as a forum admin), and we only had 2 user levels: “New user” and “Normal user” (besides stuff like moderators and staff of course).
Discourse is clearly more Web 2.0 oriented, and has all those childish bells & whistles (badges, merits and whatnot) which IMHO are nonsense (but that’s me).
Oh well.
Anyway, if you can push about the FAQ addition… The current FAQ is more of a forum guidelines list, also known as IAQ, “Infrequently Asked Questions”…
My current thinking about the edit time limit:
It is probably meant to prevent users from significantly changing their statements ages after things have already been discussed for some time. Such edits would make it impossible to follow the original conversation. Edits should be used to correct typos and other small things soon(ish) after they were posted. New developments and other changes should be documented via new posts by the respective user.
I agree with @urs_lesse that the Discourse devs seem to have invested a lot of time and experience into trying to create a positive user experience. I assume this is one of those things. The time limit is not the ideal solution, but it’s probably as close as you get without too much (moderation) overhead. And as already pointed out: Moderators can still help you to edit your post later if that is required.
Yes, just flag your post with “something else” and tell the moderators what you want to change.
That’s imho really easy so I don’t see any need to change Discourse defaults.
Updating FAQs may still be a good idea.
