Users often treat the main post of a thread as a kind of notepad with versioning. While the ability to edit is useful for minor, non-substantive changes, it becomes counterproductive when the post is repeatedly updated as the discussion evolves.
The main issue is that these updates are not tracked in a meaningful way. Edits usually lack clear metadata showing when they occurred, either in absolute time or in relation to the sequence of replies (for example, after post #24). As a result, the connection between the evolving main post and the ongoing discussion becomes unclear.
Without this time context, edits lose much of their meaning. A reader can no longer follow the thread in a clear chronological order, regardless of whether the interface is linear, nested, or tree-based. Understanding the discussion then becomes a process of guessing and reconstruction.
What is fundamentally missing is a way to align edits of the original post with the thread timeline, so that each change can be understood in the context of when it occurred relative to the discussion.
Yes. The solution is simple: Don’t make substantive changes after posting. There are MANY problems with major substantive changes, including that people who use the email view simply don’t get them, and what you’re describing here.
At the very VERY least, people should annotate their edits (eg adding “EDIT: blah blah blah” at the very end of the post, without changing anything earlier), though I would say that this is still not as good as simply making a new post in the thread.
I have long been convinced that this is just wishful thinking. That is why a minor UI fix would help make edits easier to understand. Along with unhiding the edit timestamp (showing “x time ago” is not sufficient), the post number at the time of the edit should also be shown. It is something I find myself doing manually over and over again. Not in the mood to create a Chrome extension for that.
It’s a question of whether we’re going to actually tell people that they shouldn’t edit their posts, or give up and try to make it slightly less bad. I don’t want to give ANY encouragement to people to make substantive edits, since there’s no way that this “minor UI fix” (IMO this wouldn’t be minor, it would actually be quite a significant change) would do anything to help those who use the emails.
How about also sending the updated version to users via email, alongside the UI interface? That would make it more complex than a minor UI fix. So a Chrome extension would be sufficient for now.
That would be a fairly deep change, and would break threading, since it would have to be sent as a new post. Really, if people are making substantive edits to their posts, something is very VERY wrong, either with their expectations or with the workflow (for example, we have PEPs and other documents that serve those sorts of roles better).
I don’t understand your proposal: you want to change Discourse? That’s not something we can do.
(BTW: is your avatar really a pure white image? It would be easier to understand threads you participate in if it had some other content in it. In light mode, there’s nothing to see.)
I am unable to determine which Discourse theme features are configurable, as these appear to be restricted to premium features. However, I did see official documentation posts in which the authors include the last editor and a timestamp at the end of the original post. Based on this, it seems that customizing the timestamp display style may not be possible.
I have the opposite issue: I need to easily locate my posts in dark mode. A theme style could strike a balance, making profile photos visible in both dark and light modes.
I don’t know what you are talking about. You have a pure white image. That is then displayed on a pure white background. Hypothetically, what should Discourse do differently? What is the system design limitation? And since Discourse is not changing any time soon, why won’t you make a slight adjustment to your avatar so that other people can see you?
Thanks for mentioning this, @nedbat. I routinely ignore posts from @elis.byberi: it’s hard for me to find post boundaries, and there’s not enough time in my day to deal with something that seems hostile to other users. I might miss some good stuff, but I’m okay with the tradeoff.
Please don’t. The social contract of editing existing posts (on practically every platform I know) is that it does NOT spam participants with any notifications.
The “correct”™ use of editing takes that into account: it’s not to communicate information to existing participants, but to create “shortcuts” for future visitors to the discussion. E.g.: strike out something later found to be false, with an EDIT:/UPDATE: note.
As you say, it’s easy to misuse (eternal september is eternal…), confusing future visitors more if responses no longer make sense
Still, if you make editing noisy it’ll defeat IMHO the whole point of editing. It’ll turn thoughtful investment (e.g. adding a reply AND editing a previous post) into annoyance to people being spammed by extra notifications.
We already have one obvious way to broadcast info—compose a new reply—so if you really want to force email notifications and/or 100% pristine chronology, just disable editing entirely.
I don’t know how many users read the Guidelines (have to admit I hadn’t )… They do say a lot about editing, notably:
Community members are allowed to edit their own posts. Substantially changing the meaning of the original post is discouraged, but fixing spelling/grammar, rewording, or adding clarification is welcome. Avoid substantial edits after 15 minutes of posting.
and:
People are allowed to use the features available to them in Discourse. That means editing, splitting topics, moving categories, etc. This may not be visible to email users. Email users have to accept their experience as it is.
Perhaps ideally, the editing UI itself could show a brief guideline+link?
Stack Overflow does this kind of in-place guiding quite well: (EDIT: added screenshot)
Yes, that seems like a reasonable addition, with a reference to the “Content Editing” section of the guidelines. This avoids duplicating the guidelines in multiple places.
Frankly, I didn’t clearly remember the 15-minute rule either, even though I had read the guidelines before. I only knew the general idea that substantial edits can disrupt the flow of discussion. Don’t blame me for that; it’s the immense amount of information we need to process daily in today’s world.
)… They do say a lot about editing, notably:
Perhaps ideally, the editing UI itself could show a brief guideline+link?
screenshot)