{I have dropped this suggestion into the Suggestion Box, but I would like to also post it here to allow Yuku members to chime in.}
I would like to offer the suggestion that there be an option for board admins. to place a time limit on how long a post can be edited by a member. For example, a option to limit editing of posts to 20 or 30 minutes after it's made.
This would allow the members time to correct any typos or to fix the wording of something -- but prevent them from coming back hours or days later (after other people have responded) and changing their post, which then disrupts the continuity of the ensuing conversation.
This happens frequently on my board, which is for discussing politics. Someone will post something, someone else will prove them wrong or strongly criticize them, so then the first person changes or deletes their post, leaving a lot of rebuttals but not the original remarks to which they are responding.
In one recent instance, the person's post was the lead post. Since it was the beginning post of the discussion, it left us with a thread with a lot of responses, but no beginning. This conversation had been going on during the day, and by the time I returned home from work later in the evening, the lead post was gone, leaving me to ponder what it was that they had said.
Yesterday, a person came by, and apparently upset that everyone was criticizing them lately, went and deleted all their posts in all their threads they had made for the past week, replacing all their posts with an image of someone giving the finger. This, of course, disrupted the many conversations, leaving the many threads with a lot of posts responding to their posts but not their posts.
Another incident involved someone changing their post a couple of days later and denying that they had said what they had said. With their original post now gone, how could anyone prove otherwise?!
I would like to suggest, then, that there be an option for admins. to place a time limit on how long a post can be edited. Right now, the options are to allow editing forever, or not at all, but nothing inbetween. I do want to allow folks to be able to fix their typos, but I don't want them coming back hours or days later to change or delete their posts once the discussion is underway.
I know of at least one other message board system which has this option of allowing edits to be made only for the first 20 minutes after the post is made, so I know it is possible to do.
Thank you.
YIKES)
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