Edit Discussion

[Tancorix]

Time to hit the brakes. NT, check out the nifty search button up top, if you do a simple search you'll quickly see where those quotes come from.

I have to admit I like seeing an active anti-minority hijack post or two but I don't think you're going to win this one. Even with Spanky's resistance there are some influential people behind this. If no edit stays I'll be very surprised.

[Don Muerto]

All of the quotes I posted can be turned up by a search of the word "edit" as stated when I quoted them. You will find the first set on pages 14 - 16 of results and the second set on pages 5 - 7 of results. Nothing was manufactured by me.

There must have been a good reason the edit function was removed or they wouldn't (supposedly) have removed it.

Well, that's logic for you. Good luck with that.

This quote from Emily, an eplaya admin, on November 13, 2004 should suffice to disprove your supposedly:

ps. the edit button isn't broken, it's turned off so that people do not go back and change their posts in times of controversy as we have seen done before. i miss the ability to edit my posts, too!

-but then you are familiar with this quote aren't you?

You see, I noticed that when I posted the above quote in my long list of quotes it had the final, pro-edit sentiment. When you copied my quotes, I noticed that you took the time to trim this off.

Why?

[Nightterror]

Sccreeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeec c c c c c hhhhhhhhhhhhh.

For those of you who lack imagination - that is me putting on the brakes. But only for the possible assumption that the quotes were - um - not a factual representation of all the users of this board.

"the edit button isn't broken, it's turned off so that people do not go back and change their posts in times of controversy as we have seen done before."

That's good enough for me. It seems to me that this statement supports my argument. Why not keep it real? Why not be responsible for what you post? Why not learn and grow? Why?

[synchronicity]

I am confused.
I have been a regular on DeadNet for quite some time. We have edit and delete for 15 minutes. The sign up is very casual. There are a healthy number of "socks". The moderation is very gentle. There is assumed to be a certain amount of mutual respect for both the hosts of the site, and the participants. No problems.....
Here, things seem to be much more structured - and it appears that there are more problems?
Is there that much of a major behavioral difference between Burners and Deadheads?
Please note - that site does not show post count, date joined, or avatars.
Maybe the symbols of attachment are what need to go?

[synchronicity]

Edit to add two additional thoughts and one correction.

A note is added to reflect deleted posts.
We have several active gifting threads going all the time.

correction - edit is 30 min.

[Don Muerto]

The "structure" you see is a rather new development that IMO do indeed create more problems than they have solved.

Ultimately, the lack of user tools led to overuse of admin tools. Now we have some basic user tools, and are trying to get some of the harmful changes reversed.

[Nightterror]

I will concede one point - by having my post edited by proxy - I learned how to make big question marks. ?

[Tancorix]

I am confused.
I have been a regular on DeadNet for quite some time. We have edit and delete for 15 minutes. The sign up is very casual. There are a healthy number of "socks". The moderation is very gentle. There is assumed to be a certain amount of mutual respect for both the hosts of the site, and the participants. No problems.....
Here, things seem to be much more structured - and it appears that there are more problems?
Is there that much of a major behavioral difference between Burners and Deadheads?
Please note - that site does not show post count, date joined, or avatars.
Maybe the symbols of attachment are what need to go?

Going off on a tangent and from a self-admitted former post count whore, (there, I said it), getting rid of the number of posts is an idea I would like to see discussed. Keeping the date joined is good to track spammers and fresh socks and that should stay, imho. Admins, everyone, is this tangent worthy of discussion?

[Don Muerto]

In a different thread.

[Badger]

Actually, I did read it right after posting that. I found it to be underwhelming and a sorta non-brainer. And yes, I read it carefully. I was thinking about something a little more substantative....like a case study or a discussion on the sociological impacts in an electronic community on the use of edit, different uses of edit and lessons learned by using it. You know...not a paragraph or two on the Well's policy, but like a research paper or something. I'm going to talk to Ron Meiners and see if he has any reference he can point us to. eCommunity is his forte.

Not to slap you down Badger, I just was looking for more than policy. I like their policy, though.

I certainly didn't take it as a slap. Reading the policy over I can see how you might be underwhelmed. I guess the weakness there is that the more substantive discussions and the histories of how the policy has evolved into a successful 'culture' over there can only be found in some of the more detailed threads that members have access to.

[spectabillis]

The "structure" you see is a rather new development that IMO do indeed create more problems than they have solved.

Could you please elaborate in the Categories and Forum Discussion?

[Don Muerto]

Spect, I was referring to abstract structure, i.e. admin actions like suspensions, removal of edit, shutdowns, etc. -not the actual fora structure.

[blueniteowl]

Give me edit, or give me death. I just added to the clutter on the board by posting to edit what I had just said so that it made sense. It's stupid, I forgot to preview and I had extra symbols like this:[i][/quote] laying around in my post. Plus, things where italicized when I didn't want them to be and blah, blah, blah.

ONE VOTE FOR EDIT HERE!

[geekster]

getting rid of the number of posts is an idea I would like to see discussed

Why? No, really, I want to know why. Why is there any reason to change it? It is of little consequence either way, but in general, I see no reason to change it.

[Don Muerto]

Please don't muddy the water with that issue. Petition Spanky for a thread to hold that discussion in.

[Ludwig]

I just added to the clutter on the board by posting to edit what I had just said so that it made sense. It's stupid, I forgot to preview...

Patient: Doctor, it hurts when I do this. (sticks fork into own eye)

Doctor: So don't do that.

[Don Muerto]

While I agree with your hypothetical doctor's advice regarding forks and eyes, I don't think that is a very good example for the situation.

Rather than trying to enforce a behavior on everyone, why not provide the much simpler solution of allowing people to edit themselves if they wish?

The function is voluntary after all. Even with it enabled, you could let your mistyped words stand as a beacon to the style of self-responsibility championed by some here. The rest of us can clarify our posts, and feel happier for it. If the aforementioned few think we are craven twits for using the function so be it. I don't see myself losing any sleep over that assessment.

Can anybody provide a compelling reason why we can't edit? So far we have an opinion stated, a philosophy stated, and the boogeyman of people erasing their tracks offered up as why we shouldn't edit.

Opinions are just that. Philosophies are nice, but we don't all have to share the same ones. As for the people erasing their tracks. Give me the worst case scenario. Show me the worst it can be. I am pretty sure it will amount to no big deal at all.

[spectabillis]

I dont see a clear consensus on this, nor do I think one is going to be reached. Would anybody agree there is a majority for or against? I say there is, for, but want to hear others on it.

Someone might throw out the 'rule by majority does not reflect the rights of the minority' argument, thats why I want to know how much of a majority there is.

[actiongrl]

I must try again here. I assure you guys, I'm a pretty doggone careful writer. I take a lot of care to craft my thoughts, and I usually preview once or twice to try them on for size. (Good thing I type so fast.) And yet
sometimes I post and realize that I totally screwed the pooch and forgot to close a parenthesis, or dropped a crucial qualifier ("Gah, I mean't 'you're NOT stupid, stupid rat creatures' not 'you're stupid, stupid rat creatures'!!") or that, doggone it, I don't want to say anything after all, and maybe only one person has seen it yet and I should just take it down and let the bad energy drain away before I start spouting off at the mouth. Who gets hurt by that?

Even if I only got fifteen minutes or half an hour to catch an error or correct it, it'd satisfy me. I think that'd be quite enough for me. No matter how carefully I preview, for some reason, I still desire more time to edit after I get a chance to see it in the thread. Not to change my story or revise history really, but to get the most out of bothering to write, and know I've done my best to express myself as clearly as I am able in this medium. I'm sure I can't be the only one - the votes so far would seem to confirm that I'm not alone in that.

Don Muerto's given a vast look at the examples on this side of our little debate. I'd also like to ask, in the example of the user who revised all his snipey posts with "message deleted"...how did the act affect the board and others? I honestly don't remember the results. Did it make things worse than the posts had done?

Could it even be possible that the collective weight of negative blather might have been lightened by that admittedly revisionist act? I'm unsure, maybe not... but I do wonder.

Request: if all this conversation still doesn't get us anywhere, I have to beg you for a favor. I do now have access to that edit button as an admin, but my fellow ePlayans do not, and I gotta tell ya, seeing it there all tasty and perfect when I have accidentally hit submit instead of preview or found a real problem in my post. See, I'm only human and I...well, yes, I have felt lust in my heart. And I don't think I'd do well with temptation if a dangling participle was at stake , man. I have done my best, but dammit, Jim, I'm a doctor, not a monk...or, you know, some impassioned plea of that sort.

Thus, for now, in the interest of fair play, I'd like to request that my good friends on the admin team remove edit from my Admin-empowered username, if it's possible, until or unless every user gets it for at least fifteen minutes after their post. Otherwise I'll have to only participate as an admin so as not to feel I have an unfair privilege over the others who'd like to have edit too. I'm not trying to be dramatic, but I want to express that the ability to craft the eplaya environment does not truly rest only with those of us with burningman.com aliai. I don't really think I have any reason to have edit power over my posts that others don't have over their own, since I feel like have other tools to deal with spam posts or illegal content should the situation arise.

I'm not just being facetious. Thanks.

[actiongrl]

I'll be honest, consensus is really not possible as such with this discussion here, and I wouldn't want to pretend that that is the pursuit in this thread... nor in fact should we pretend like this kind of decision rests solely on popular opinion, or the poll numbers, entirely. Ultimately a decision like that does rest with the group who administrate and own it - those who created the board, those who are responsible for its maintenance, those who volunteer to implement its goals by their efforts. (This is not to say the user doesn't have a voice or a say in it all, to be clear.)

A user who doesn't like the tool does have power too - they can try throwing their shoulder in to do that work and getting more authority to change the tool, or just using the tool even with their complaints, or complaining louder so someone listens and tries another approach, or even choosing to go elsewhere with their contributions and efforts, of course... but the people with the responsibility of administration, volunteering, or ownership of the tool must do what seems best for the community they are trying to serve, and they have to own the consequences and are the ones accountable for the results.

I think that there is honest effort to gauge the users' opinions in order to weigh them into the decision. It'd be counterproductive to ignore the facts. Stupid, in fact. Does that make sense?

So that decision making body and its many diverse human representatives will meet, review, and take the input into consideration and decide, based both on the goals that it has for hosting this board, and its desire to give the users a good tool that attempts to facilitate their ability to communicate and connect.

[Tancorix]

I dislike following two damn good posts with my little comment but here it is. The admins gave us edit. Then when it was being abused they took it back. Now that the board has settled down maybe it's time to return it. Edit has never really been in the realm of the board's users to decide about anyway so why change the historical pattern? My opinion: Let the admins think it over and if they feel it's the right thing to do, turn it back on. Not everything has to be made into a popularity contest. And there is no majority / minority here, we're all eplayans and that should be the end of it. I trust the admins to do what's best for the board and I say quit whipping this horse, make a decision and let's get on with other things.

[Captain Fuckwit]

My opinion: Let the admins think it over and if they feel it's the right thing to do, turn it back on... I trust the admins to do what's best for the board

Dear Tancorix, please curb your sycophantic blather. When you write such statements in support of the Admin, it puts you in a light titled "Friend of the Admin" to raise your status of importance by association. Why exactly do you trust the Admins? Do you trust them merely because they are Admins? I'm sorry to disappoint you but the Admins aren't the Sacred Elves of the Wise Council. Quit acting like they are.

Dear Badger, you're an asshole for making fun of Tancorix: Could be cancer, could be acne, it doesn't matter. You're the one making fun of someone else. Get it? Stop making fun of the guy. He's either sick in the head or sick in the body with lymphoma. There's no need to Badger him and become nothing more than a catch-phrase: "Badger, Badger, Badger, my enemy, my enemy". If Tancorix is faking it, then it's a dirty trick. If it is not a trick, then he's still painted into a corner by mortality, which we all are.

Dear Spanky, the reason that you don't want to restore the Edit-button is because you are a coward. Calling you a coward is NOT a violation of Clause 7e- of the TOS. It's even less of a non-violation if I, of course, I can prove that you are a coward and I am then merely stating the facts that you are a momma's boy, a milquetoast, and a whinergrl.

So how does one prove that you're a coward? Well, you'll prove it yourself when you get your panties in a bunch and take punative admin action me because Captain Fuckwit called you a coward. I think you are capable of taking it on the chin because you really are not these things that I've called you and it all rings hollow. The solution for you under God's eyes and the eyes of everybody else is to take it all on the chin. Do you trust me? Do you have any reason to trust me? I have light-years more experience than you do at BBSing. Restore the Edit button, and then look at the creases in your open palm. You'll see five clear-cut-abuses of the Edit Button in one year, on one hand, while the multitude enjoy their Edit button. There exists a possiblity that you may get bit my a snake. But this is the chance you'll have to take. We haven't got all Goddamned day.

Sincerely yours,
Captain Fuckwit

[emily sparkle]

Hey ePlaya Admin team? Why have you foresaken me!!

i haven't had the chance to read all the posts that happened over the weekend here (i've been on the slopes!) but i'll throw in my two cents.

i like the limited editing function. it allows people to correct or clarify but still won't get the moderators into a situation where they are no longer able to review posts that have been complained about because the poster has gone back and edited the content to obliterate the discussion.

now... off to work... then i'll get back to this thread tonight.

[Tancorix]

Dear Tancorix, please curb your sycophantic blather. When you write such statements in support of the Admin, it puts you in a light titled "Friend of the Admin" to raise your status of importance by association. Why exactly do you trust the Admins? Do you trust them merely because they are Admins? I'm sorry to disappoint you but the Admins aren't the Sacred Elves of the Wise Council. Quit acting like they are.

Me? A friend of the admin? Sorry, but I don't think so. I don't need to curry favor with the admins (or anyone on here) and the only agenda I have is cleaning up the Badger mess (despite all that's happened he is a good person). I trust the admins because they have volunteered to do what they do, the community seems to have embraced them, and I believe people are fundamentally good until proven otherwise (I have no reason not to trust them, or you or anyone else on here). And I'd like to see this resolved without being dragged to death by byzantine policy debates or votes. Sample the group, make a decision, test it out. We can debate hypotheticals all day long, I say turn it on for a week, see what happens and then come back and review it. The negative opinions are based on situations that happened months ago, and who wants to make a decision based on old information?

[Isotopia]

Restore the Edit button, and then look at the creases in your open palm. You'll see five clear-cut-abuses of the Edit Button in one year, on one hand, while the multitude enjoy their Edit button. There exists a possiblity that you may get bit my a snake. But this is the chance you'll have to take. We haven't got all Goddamned day.

I'm inclined to agree. Hell, I can't even remember who it was that deleted the posts that Andi refers to. My experiences have been that thoserelatively few people who do go back and delete their entire board history do so for reasons that in the end never seem to make all that much sense. When it has happened the act has been met with everything from a yawn to 3 page screeds. In the end though I think those extreme examples really don't have that much of an impact on the flow of conversation. I think the same goes for the few folks who're inclined to compulsively edit their posts. In the even rarer case where someone goes back to edit in order to change the 'conversation continuum' for revisionist reasons I believe the collective memory of the board is strong enough to make a note of such efforts so that anyone reading the thread will be somewhat prepared should the disconnect happen.

Dear Badger, you're an asshole

You're elaborating on the obvious CF and straying off topic. Thank you for sharing though. I feel your pain.

[Bob]

The eplaya isn't simply a forum for discussion between individuals, though some make use of it that way.

Starting a new thread, it's typical for the o.p. to summarize what it's about, whether it's a query, an announcement, or a subject for general discussion/argument. Other users browsing through the topics will key to the title and the first posts to gauge whether they want to read further into the thread. Seems reasonable to allow a limited editing window for that, albeit that many of us might wish to omit glaring errors in format or content in any mid-thread eplaya contribution.

[spectabillis]

....
Sincerely yours,
Captain Fuckwit

Please refrain from these personal comments, they sidetrack the issue.

[Don Muerto]

Kinetic, you will notice that the title of this thread is "Edit Discussion" and that it was created by an admin. Moreover, Spanky asked for input in this thread. You needn't wring your hands about us whipping a dead-horse in a a thread created for the express purpose of discussion of said horse. Yes we are all eplayans, but as has been noted and affirmed, we are not all equals and we do not all agree. It is silly to characterize this as a popularity contest, some sort of nuisance, or something distructive to the board. If you don't want to participate by discussing the feature, please move on.

Fuckwit, your personal feelings and perceived failings of others have no place in this discussion. Feel free to weigh in with your opinion of the edit function, but leave the shitflinging out please.

Emily, thanks for you input, I look forward to more after you have had time to catch up.

AG, thank you for both of your posts. I don't necessarily have a problem with these types of decisions being made by the admins & ETF, but I do have a problem with being led to believe the decision is ours, i.e. the users, only to run into a brick wall when popular opinion does not track with admin opinion. "Consensus" is not a word with a definite meaning, and I think it has been ill-defined and sloppily used by Spanky in unfortunate conjuction with phrases like "It's YOUR board."

Obviously "consensus" as used here does not mean "if the users want it" as there is ample evidence that we do. Thank you for your honesty about where the decision will really be made, and I would appreciate some thought being given by the admin team to what type of board befits burningman, and what type of board will be provided via the eplaya.

In a null-harm context, such as we have with the edit function will the users decide the details of their experience or will a smaller group decide for the users as a whole?

The importance of this decision goes well beyond the discussion of one feature. It is not trivial, in fact it is nothing less than a discussion of the foundational principle of how this board will be run.

[theCryptofishist]

. . . wring your hands about us whipping a dead-horse in a a thread created for the express purpose of discussion of said horse.

<thread drift>From my reading of 19th century lit (specifically Sewell and Dostoevski) I get the feeling that it isn't the whipping of a dead horse--disturbing as it must have been in its way--so much of that of an almost dead horse that was the real gut wrench, wrongness of the world event to witness. And I get the feeling that it was a common sight--one that many or most city dwellers would experience. It's becoming one of my most do we really need this idiom now that we've lost the meaning of it? idioms.</thread drift>

[Ludwig]

Rather than trying to enforce a behavior on everyone, why not provide the much simpler solution of allowing people to edit themselves if they wish?

No one has suggested forcing people to edit their posts, so volition is really not an issue here. No-edit doesn't actively "enforce behavior" as you're cleverly trying to suggest, it just prohibits one behavior, namely editing.

Can anybody provide a compelling reason why we can't edit? So far we have an opinion stated, a philosophy stated, and the boogeyman of people erasing their tracks offered up as why we shouldn't edit.
Opinions are just that. Philosophies are nice, but we don't all have to share the same ones.

No, but we do have to provide sound reasoning or other justification for those philosophies if we care about anyone else taking them seriously. "I don't wanna use Preview because it's boring and sometimes I forget" is, to put it mildly, less than persuasive.

"Boogeymen" are perceived threats that do not actually exist; historical revisionism, since it does exist (I've seen it myself) is not a boogeyman.

As for the people erasing their tracks. Give me the worst case scenario. Show me the worst it can be. I am pretty sure it will amount to no big deal at all.

Poster1: I think the playa lampposts should have a new design every year.

Don Muerto: I agree with Poster1. They should all be thrown on the fire at the end of the week.

becomes

Poster1: I'm sick of all the fags and niggers at the event.
this post has been edited

Don Muerto: I agree...
etc. If you're thinking that only an insignificant number of people would be so hateful, you need look no further than Captain Fuckwit's diseased invective just upthread. And relatively benign pranksters are probably in far greater abundance around here.

Having no edit lays the minor burden of clicking Preview on each poster, and only at the time the post is actually being made. Allowing edit places on everyone the burden of having to re-read the entire thread on every visit to see what may have been altered since the last visit. Considering the length of many of the threads here (Are there really >700 things to say about the Empire Store? There aren't 700 things in the Empire Store!) and the ease with which a malicious "Poster1" could put you into an awkward situation without your knowledge, I'd call that burden considerable -- suffocating, even.

Granted, a 15 minute time limit on edits would significantly alleviate the Poster1 scenario, but once that's available people will bitch that fifteen minutes isn't nearly long enough to reformulate their thoughts, or to go back and remove their drunken ramblings from Saturday at 3AM. And they'll be right; fifteen minutes is about long enough to spot typos and make minor corrections and not much more. So if the purpose of Edit is simply to fix typos before committing one's words to posterity, what's Preview for??

Unlimited edit is a total mess, and we already have the equivalent functionality of a 15-minute edit window.