The Mighty Monkey Of Mim wrote:
Another word about editing posts: I realize the short editing window was put in place to prevent people from invalidating or obscuring the meaning of succeeding posts by drastically altering the content of their own. (Again, not something I felt had become a pervasive problem by any means, at least not in the Dylan-related fora, but I understand the reasoning behind it.) Still, IMO there are two distinctly negative side-effects to this policy that are serious enough to warrant its reconsideration:
1.) A higher incidence of typos, grammar errors, awkward wording, etc. People don't always notice those things right away, even if they do proofread before they post. I know from personal experience that you can easily miss something initially, but then catch it when you return after a few hours or the next day. Especially in the context of that user agreement draft, which reflects a conception that clarity of meaning and eloquence of language are desirable and valued, this is highly incongruous. As someone else said, I take pride in what I compose and post here, and I abhor not being able to fix my own mistakes because I don't recognize them until too late.
2.) Placing a short limit on the time in which people can edit their own posts is essentially depriving them of the ability to exercise their better judgement after the fact. While I would have no objection to a guideline that encourages people to think carefully before posting in a public forum, I do have an objection to removing or severely limiting a mechanism that facilitates self-censorship and self-control. Sometimes you post something in the heat of a discussion and, upon later reflection, think better of it. Sometimes you want to re-word it to avoid misunderstanding or offense. You should be able to do so.
Mind you, I have no problem with creating some general ground rules regarding responsible use of the edit function that moderators can use as guidelines and enforce as necessary. (i.e., deliberate or intentional distortion or misrepresentation of other posters' responses to one's own posts by means of the edit function is not allowed, etc.)
Could a compromise be to allow editing unless someone has posted since the post you want to edit? This might not solve it, but would at least let those of us who let typos slip by have a chance to correct them. (btw, this is how it works in the on-line classes I facilitate...)
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), but in light of the new rules, I will spell out that if you were accidentally banned, you probably did not know you were doing something wrong, because you weren't. Fallibility is one of the many reasons why authority should always be checked, even under rightful and well-intentioned authority.
