Hi Max: Personal edit button?

Subject: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: harpgirl
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 09:05 AM

Tweed's board has this really cool edit button that you can hit and edit your post AFTER you have posted. It would save the cloneheads a lot of work. Would it be hard to do up??

l,h

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 09:13 AM

Actually, a good idea, even if it is from you. What I'd really like: An edit button that only lets you edit for, say, five minutes after posting, so you can touch up your post, but can't change your post drastically after a lenghty argument. ("What? I never called you a schlongwrangler! Check my post!")

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: John Hardly
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 09:18 AM

I have wanted this from day one. Every other board I participate in has it. It helps with civility as well as clarity (and saves embarrassment for those of us too lazy to always put on our reading glasses)

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 10:11 AM

GOOD IDEA!!!

I've said so many things here that if I'd slept on them for a night, and looked at them the next morning, I might've changed drastically.
What I posted might've been in the heat of the moment---and not my considered opinion at all.

It's too damn easy to click once, post, and think about it later.

Art Thieme--

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 10:15 AM

I think NOT being able to modify post-facto is an interesting constraint; keeps you on yer toes!!

A

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 10:16 AM

But an edit button would take away any semblance to real life conversation. We can't rewind in real life, but we can try and explain ourselves or admit our errors if we feel the need.

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 10:21 AM

Everything I said I meant, at the time I said it anyway!
G.

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Mark Cohen
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 10:49 AM

I'll vote against it, for the reasons mentioned by Amos and GUEST above. I believe in taking responsibility for what I say and do...and apologizing if I screw up--which I do with some regularity.

Aloha,
Mark

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 10:50 AM

for some folks, like me, who are 2 finger dyslexic typists, it would be nice....for others it would be like Congress (USA) ability to "revise and extend" remarks before they were printed in the Congressional record.

You have some who did massive editing and some who never did, making many threads make even less sense than they do now. You'd have replies to non-existant questions and arguements based ON what was edited or not....I think maybe editing 'might' be best limited to what the clones agree to fix...(bad HTML, silly misspellings...etc.) If you really need to change, rethink or retract a remark, copy & paste might be best...

(I'd REALLY like to know exactly what was said on the floor of the Senate before Senator Floofnagle backed down)

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: GUEST,Art Thieme
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 11:10 AM

I see your points. Either way is cool.

Max, thanks again for this place.

Art

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 11:15 AM

Uh, isn't this why we have the PREVIEW button?

Also, harpgirl, I reply to you and then you reply to me, but then later I edit my reply-- wouldn't that potentially make your post back to me a non-sequitur?

~Susan

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 11:32 AM

A five minute post-posting editing button would be helpful, for all those times that as I push the submit button I notice I've left a "not" out of a sentence, or jumbled the spelling.   I know that conscientious use of the preview helps with that, but not when I post without previewing. As it is not infreqently I find myself sending an immediate follow-up post modified to say what I actually meant to say, trusting that a clone will remove the first one.

I'd be against is being able to edit what I wrote the next morning though. That's the kind of thing politcians do with parliamentary records, and it's fundamentally dishonest. If we post something that we wish we hadn't posted, and left it there long enough for other to read and maybe respond to, we shouldn't try to clean up the record on the quiet, we should apologise openly.

And the best thing is never to post anything in hot anger. Let it lie fallow for a few hours - if we still feel like posting some kind of cutting remarks they will probably be a lot more effectively cutting if we've slept on it. But more than likely we'll decide not to.

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Leadfingers
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 01:34 PM

Before we worry about changes to the existing system , why not let Max get on with sorting out the major problems we already know about ?

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 01:41 PM

I've been asking For an Edit Post button as long as I've been here... Every message board worth it's salt has at least THAT basic feature...

"Preview"
Sometimes errors still get past...

"any semblance to real life conversation"
But this ISN'T real conversation... d'uh....

There would undoubtedly be wankers who felt the need to go back and just always change their initial post... they wouldn't be worth the time of day...

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: MMario
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 01:44 PM

of course since you have been here Clinton you still haven't been able to distinguish between a message board and a forum. Or if you have - you never bother to do so. They are differnet entities.

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 01:49 PM

Hardly Mmario.. they may have ONCE been, but such distinctions are part of the distance past of cyberspace...

This place really should just sack up and go Php...

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: The Shambles
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 01:57 PM

For originators to be able to edit all aspects of their own posts - would certainly be far better than having some anonymous volunteer rush to impose their judgement upon their fellow posters - without the originators knowledge or permission.

If a personal edit button meant doing away with the need for all this current imposed censorship - then please bring it on.

Perhaps all this needless imposition can be done away with now - without any personal edit button?

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: The Shambles
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 01:59 PM

In the UK.............?

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: John Hardly
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 02:13 PM

It isn't all about "changing the record". It's about being able to correct honest errors.

Every other board has them -- when you read those "non-sequiturs" created by responding to a post that no longer reads as it once did you say to yourself, "hmmmmm, someone must have edited afterwards". No big deal. You usually even get the gist of the edit and even the probability of understanding who or what was at "fault" before the edit.

What you DON'T get is the re-current, constant resurrection of a dead horse that could have been corrected in its infancy by a simple edit -- especially on a board full of fault-finders.

And as to "changing the record", again, you usually still get the gist of the arguement once a post is responded to, but even if not, who cares? It's not like we're making law. We're chatting.

I like my posts. I like my archive. But it's a weird level of solipsitic delusion that thinks either are "important". But if they are important (our posts), they are better when corrected.

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: freightdawg
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 02:16 PM

Once again McGrath of Harlow distinguishes himself as one of the most insightful contributors to this site.

Well said, M of H. Well said.

Freightdawg

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: John Hardly
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 02:17 PM

for what it's worth, though....

I think it's not allowed here because it requires considerably more bandwidth to allow edit function -- and that, at a time when the whole mudcat system is seemingly ready to collapse from its weight anyway.

I was once told that an edited post is a MUCH bigger file than would seem proportionate to the size of the post.

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: John Hardly
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 02:20 PM

...oh, and if we had an edit function...

we'd be able to UN-respond to trolls. (since so few on this site seem to be able to restrain themselves from first impulses). That alone would be worth the price of admission -- a troll-free zone.

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 02:45 PM

"because it requires considerably more bandwidth to allow edit function"
I doubt that very much

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: nutty
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 02:57 PM

You would have to defer the posting (to the actual forum) for a certain period of time to allow for editing.
Making changes after a posting would make a total nonsense of any ensuing posts.

I'm for leaving things as they are. Changes are not always for the better.

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: GUEST,Jon
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 03:04 PM

There are no bandwidth issues. And for those wondering about the difficulty, if you think about it for 1/2 a minute, the facility already exists as Joe and the clones have it. It may need a bit of tuning to prevent unuthorised HTML for example but largely it would only be a matter of extending the use to others.

Whether such a change would be desirable or not is another matter. Most systems I use allow editing and don't have problems with abuse like re-writing history. In the case of Mudcat, it is rather tempting to suggest it would be useful above the line but likely to be a liability below the line...

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 03:21 PM

"Most systems I use allow editing and don't have problems with abuse like re-writing history"

Of all the MBs I've ever visited, I've never seen anyone BOTHER to 'rewrite' history as some here are suggesting... I'd imagine that if anyone did, simply no one would bother replying to them, and their posts would fall off the page...

Oh... wait... this is mudcat... I forgot...

You're right... it'd happen all the time, and people would spend hours a day wailing and gnashing their teeth about it...

Ya know... just like now... So, I ask for those who are against/afraid of change, how would it be any different?

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: John Hardly
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 03:47 PM

It ain't "HISTORY" fergoshsakes! They're postings to a web bulletin by a bunch of middle-aged folks who have the common interest of music. There is little if anything of consequence written here. It ain't "literature" to be guarded. "History"? come on.

I'd sure as hell rather be able to edit my own then to have the right relinquished to someone else as it is.

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Max
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 03:48 PM

No

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 03:51 PM

:)

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 04:08 PM

Care to elaborate Max? Or will you leave it up to us to speculate the reasons...

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: GUEST,Martin Gibson's Mind But Not Body
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 04:13 PM

Hey, he said NO moron.

what part of NO don't you understand?

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 04:14 PM

The reasons behind it, if any...

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Big Mick
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 04:18 PM

Why would he? So you can bitch about how this place doesn't measure up to all the other sites you inhabit? I honestly don't know why you waste your precious time here with all the other great sites about.

This man has tried to tell you folks that he has all he can do to keep a site going as it is. He has told you that he had to take time off work to resolve problems. Get it people? He could have been making money to do things like support his family. Now there is a concept.

Mudcat has become very important in some folks lives. Out of respect for that, I believe Max keeps this thing going at great cost to his life and income.

Just enjoy the place while you have it, and be grateful you have had it this long. And, fer chrissakes, don't ask this man to sink more into it.

Rant off,

Mick

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From:
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 04:23 PM

Thanks, Big Mick. I couldn't have said it better!

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 04:28 PM

"So you can bitch about how this place doesn't measure up to all the other sites you inhabit?"

Don't have to... that's common enough knowledge... I'm not here for the software... I'm here for some of the people... But that doesn't mean we can't discuss the software and it's shortcomings...

Try not to take it so personally BM... It's just a web site... and it's just a question... Can we have an 'edit posts' feature like other sites? No... o.k... why not? Cause "just because" hasn't cut it with me since I was about 4 years old...

"He has told you that he had to take time off work to resolve problems."
There have been PLENTY of suggestions of PLENTY of things that could be done to help Mudcat... If the place was half as important to some as you'd like me to believe, I'd imagine that maybe,, just maybe.. some of the very good advice that's been shared here might have been implemented...

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Max
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 04:33 PM

No. Like life, there are no take backs. I cannot allow yall to go back and edit your messages later. We have enough trouble as it is. Be thoughtful, be careful, use Word to spell check and don't be unreasonable, don't be mean, don't be discourteous...

I will not exert effort so that you can be more careless.

That better?

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Big Mick
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 04:36 PM

Clinton, as much as I like you, you are off the mark on this issue. You present the issue from a very self centered perspective. It doesn't matter what works for you, me, harpgirl, or anyone else. This man keeps this going based on what works for him. Instead of all the bitching and carping about how it could be, just accept it for what it is.

As to it being just a message board, I beg to differ. I have travelled all over this country, and another. I have met folks from around the world. I have made music with some of the greats. And all because of this place. Most importantly, I HAVE MET MORGAN because of this place. I have met folks that were isolated and without contacts in our folk music world, until Mudcat came along.

Enjoy, and stuff your piehole.

Mick

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 04:38 PM

The mechanism is already in place to review posts before sending them. I thought that was a huge improvement when it was added and I've been happy with how it works. Getting into the habit of using it would solve a number of problems people have described encountering.

SRS

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 04:39 PM

That helps... thanks Max!

See Mick... That didn't hurt even a little bit, did it?   A plain and simple answer to a plain and simple question... (It's like a breath of fresh air around here really)

Though, I'd like to see someone try to define "unreasonable" in any way that could even PRETEND to apply to everyone in every situation!

LOL

Ya know... like "Folk Music"

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Big Mick
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 04:42 PM

Allright, you caught me being grumpy. But I stand by my posts.

Mick

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 04:46 PM

" As to it being just a message board, I beg to differ."

Differ all you want mate... Won't make it mean any more... Every single message board I visit, frequent, or even just ghost says the exact same as you do... "Oh... we're different... OUR group is special"... Well, when everything is special, then NOTHING is special...   

"And all because of this place"
If there had never been a Mudcat, you'd be singing the exact same song about whatever other message board you chose to frequent, through which you met some people and their kids...

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 04:46 PM

"Cause "just because" hasn't cut it with me since I was about 4 years old..."

it's either a technical reason, or it isn't...if it IS a technical reason, it can't be done easily anyway, but since Joe and some others can do it, that's not likely.....

If it's NOT a technical reason, it must be a judgement, and once you explain your judgements, the bickering and 2nd guessing from guys like Shambles and Clinton triple..."WHAT, that's no decent reason...why, it could be done just like..."....etc...

When you were 4, Clinton, your mother knew better than to try to explain to someone who just doesn't like the answer.

seems to me "No" is all that is necessary.

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 04:49 PM

" seems to me "No" is all that is necessary"
Fortunately BillD, Max didn't feel the same way...

"the bickering and 2nd guessing from guys like Clinton triple..."
Well, you're wrong again BillD...

"you caught me being grumpy"
As opposed to what Mick?

:-P

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 05:06 PM

When everything is special, everything is special. Special in a different kind of way.

I'm still waiting for a pointer to any forum/website/bulletin board, call-it-what-you-will, which for my purpooses is in the same league as the Mudcat. They may exist, but any time I've asked and Clinton (for example) came up with suggestions - well, I think I could see why he preferred them and I could definitely see why I didn't.

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 05:11 PM

"which for my purpooses is in the same league as the Mudcat"

I'm not talking in terms of YOUR purposes... I'm speaking of a more general, objective attitude... That Mudcat gets your meat movin' is all well and good for you... but that doesn't make it mean anything to anyone else...

Nor should it...

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Big Mick
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 05:25 PM

Careful, Clinton, you seem to be saying that you speak for everyone else. Kevin was very clear he was speaking from his perspective.

Into the corner with you, lad, and don't come out until Mum calls for dinner.

Mick

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Amos
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 05:35 PM

Ain't you guys got day jobs? Holy Moly!


A

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 06:00 PM

We already have a workable and working method for correcting blunders. If you simply re-post your message with appropriate correction of errors, you will produce a "duplicate post." Duplicates are cleared when and if they are found, just as a matter of keeping the threads reasonable free of redundancy.

You can also, and should, go to the help page, provide an address for the post and request "I did a boo-boo so I reposted a corrected version. Please delete the first post." I have found that the requested deletions will generally be promptly made.

Anyone having problems with wanting to change what they said should perhaps rethink their "SOM" (Shooting Off Mouth) syndrome. If you said something you shouldn't have, an apology is in order. If you said something that was factually incorrect, then a correction is in order. Common courtesy demands that your apology/correction should cite the error and that the error itself should remain where others can assess how guilty you should feel and whether your apology is sincere enough to be accepted.

If you're saying things that make you feel so guilty that they need to be hidden by deletion, there is a simple process that will solve your problem - it's called "growing up."

John

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: Bill D
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 06:38 PM

"wrong again"? how can that be, when I haven't yet been wrong for the first time? ;>) (I thought I was wrong once, but I was mistaken...)

ah...perhaps it was my use of 'triple'....quadruple? Please, do prove me wrong for the first time!

Subject: RE: Hi Max: Personal edit button?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 25 Jul 05 - 06:51 PM

I've occasionally used the "Edit Post" button on the Tweedboard to correct an inadvertant typo ~ never to substantially change what I said. It's a nice feature but not by any means a deal-breaker; I can live without it well enough, and I certainly accept Max's desire not to get bogged down in an effort to provide such a minor nicety.

After all, he's got more important things to do, like restoring the correct chronological order (and hence the stream-of-consciousness "logic") to all those messages in the "You Must Leave Now!" thread...

;^)