i know you mean well but

October 5, 2012 7:03 PM

Edited to add.

I've seen requests not to do this with edit window in a few threads; given the turnover we have in membership, and the fact that ETA is common in other places on the net, it seems inevitable that either these sorts of requests will have to be made continuously forever or the mods will eventually give up and ETA will become normalized.

Is there some technical barrier to preventing people from making more than (say) a ten- or twenty-character change from the original post? It seems like only a technical solution will be effective here in the long term.

posted by gerryblog to Bugs at 7:03 PM (164 comments total)

For now, just flag it - we have a whole bunch of education to do and it's going to take a little time. If it turns into something unmanageable we'll reconsider.

(Also, if you are reading this thread you officially Know Better now, ok?)
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 7:10 PM on October 5, 2012

isnt there already something that essentially says this when you clicky on edit though?
posted by elizardbits at 7:15 PM on October 5, 2012

hm, yes there is.
posted by elizardbits at 7:15 PM on October 5, 2012

Yeah, it explicitly says not to do that, but we are well aware that no one ever reads the instructions.
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 7:16 PM on October 5, 2012 [10 favorites]

Yeah the ETA thing isn't prevalent in any other community I am a member of so it may be that this is a widespread thing that we somehow missed or maybe it's not that widespread, but I concur with my colleague, we're prepared to be flexible.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 7:16 PM on October 5, 2012

We know no one reads those things. I've needed a hug for eight years.
posted by gerryblog at 7:17 PM on October 5, 2012 [57 favorites]

Yeah, I think it's premature to declare it unsolvable; folks are giddy right now, and either using the feature Just Because They Can or in some cases importing edit-notation habits from other spaces where that's the established culture. I think attentive folks are going to get annoyed at the user-training quicker than the user-training bit will resolve itself, but I have a lot of confidence that it'll work out over the not-too-long run as the cultural expectations and etiquette sink in.

There's lots of things that work a bit differently on Metafilter than on other otherwise mechanically similar sites, and there's always that culture-shock issue with new users sometimes but we still have a fairly stable, self-sustaining culture on that stuff.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:18 PM on October 5, 2012

I have to admit, the first time I posted a comment and fixed a typo using the new feature, I had almost a muscle reflex to go back and add another sentence. It was like, "oh, I can use this instead of preview."

Of course, not. But that's what my finger and wrist muscles wanted to do.
posted by alms at 7:19 PM on October 5, 2012 [4 favorites]

It's only common in other places because software does it for them. We don't leave any indicator for changes by design, and people don't have to say they edited their comment when it's a small window of time they can even do it in.

Since people are the ones doing it entirely on their own, I think we can get in front of this train and politely ask people to refrain from doing it. I suspect it'll be a short term transition as we get used to the new tools and as long as we do some user education, I don't think it will be a long term problem.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 7:20 PM on October 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

no one ever reads the instructions

Welcome to Christmas Eve, too much wine, and a toy that should have been assembled at the factory....!
posted by HuronBob at 7:20 PM on October 5, 2012 [2 favorites]

I think attentive folks are going to get annoyed at the user-training quicker than the user-training bit will resolve itself
In case you're wondering, yes.
posted by Wolfdog at 7:21 PM on October 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

It's only common in other places because software does it for them.

Not my experience, honestly. None of the boards I'm a part of auto add it but it's still pretty common notation in pretty much every online board I've been a part of that allows editing. Not so big on blogs and the like, but forums and GR, it's completely commonplace. Seems like it fits in with the general site culture here, too. Seems pretty close to "on preview," IMO.

Of course, mostly I'm just super happy to have an edit feature.
posted by PhoBWanKenobi at 7:21 PM on October 5, 2012 [4 favorites]

isnt there already something that essentially says this when you clicky on edit though?

Note that we have not yet resorted to either the blink tag or animated gifs. Worst case scenario, we'll get Clippy to help out.
posted by cortex (staff) at 7:22 PM on October 5, 2012 [18 favorites]

he should wear a fedora and be on a fixie
posted by elizardbits at 7:23 PM on October 5, 2012 [12 favorites]

STICKS NIX FIXIE CLIP PIX
posted by mintcake! at 7:34 PM on October 5, 2012 [6 favorites]

"Hi! It looks like you're trying to edit in a clever riposte"
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 7:38 PM on October 5, 2012 [29 favorites]

The NEW AND IMPROVED Metafilter: It looks like you're trying to edit in a clever riposte
posted by HuronBob at 7:44 PM on October 5, 2012

I've seen "Edited to Add" on a lot of other forums as well, inserted by the user. But I think it's a function of a (much) longer edit time window. People who go back 20 mins later to edit a comment put that in to make the conversation path more clear, I think. With a 5 minute edit window it will generally be unnecessary because the conversation won't move that quickly.
posted by aclevername at 7:46 PM on October 5, 2012

Yeah, I feel like putting "Edit: whatever" is just polite/good practice, but the instructions say not to SO I WON'T.

It feels just the same as when people ask for cash for their honeymoon in a registry card in their wedding invitation: COMPLETELY WRONG, but I comply anyway because I am a nice person who wants other people to be happy.

Edit: No, just kidding, I typed this bit in my original comment.
posted by Eyebrows McGee at 7:48 PM on October 5, 2012 [6 favorites]

People are editing for things more substantive than typos. Should they be doing that?
posted by zennie at 7:56 PM on October 5, 2012

I just saw the more detailed guidelines.

Maybe it's just tempting to put in that last thing that you forgot, or... something.
posted by zennie at 7:57 PM on October 5, 2012

I've seen "Edited to Add" on a lot of other forums as well, inserted by the user. But I think it's a function of a (much) longer edit time window.

That's my experience, too. Some forums have no time windows for edits, even, to discourage spammy thread-bumping. Not much of an issue here, I don't think.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 8:00 PM on October 5, 2012

Is there some technical barrier to preventing people from making more than (say) a ten- or twenty-character change from the original post?

Personally, I'm glad that sort of cap isn't being implemented.

What happens if a long link url (or two, or more) wasn't formatted properly, was removed from your comment entirely by the URL checker, and the reason you're editing is to add it back in?
posted by zarq at 8:22 PM on October 5, 2012

You'd have to fix your URL by posting a new comment or get a shortened link?
posted by zennie at 8:28 PM on October 5, 2012

I'm imagining that the edit page could recalculate the Levenshtein distance as you make edits. To the side of the text box would be a happy smiling picture of one of the mods. As the edit distance gets larger the mod icon would become more and more frowny. If you cross some threshold, the page flashes and icons of all the mods come onto the screen, bouncing around in the corners and shaking their fingers at you like Pac-Man ghosts or those margin illustrations in manga.

You don't even need to implement this, I'm just going to imagine that's how it works.
posted by hattifattener at 8:31 PM on October 5, 2012 [21 favorites]

It really is good form to acknowledge your edits when you've made substantive change to your comment. This is true on many forums, and I agree with aclevername's point that it's partially a function of the length of the edit-able window. But there's also that compulsion to explain, when you are pretty sure someone has already ready what you wrote. When a thread is moving along, you can feel pretty sure of that.

The problem is people are not just fixing typos. I'm not sure what you might want to do to reinforce the small-changes-only rule, but if people were really only fixing typos the compulsion to give notice of their edits would be much reduced and would more easily and permanently go away.
posted by zennie at 8:43 PM on October 5, 2012

We should get rid of the edit feature. It seemed like a good idea at first, but if editing decisions are going to get bullied and/or modded to death, maybe it is better just to get rid of it.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 8:44 PM on October 5, 2012 [6 favorites]

Today I edited a comment, adding "(possibly NSFW audio)" after I recognized that the frank and detailed discourse on pants-shitting in the YouTube video I linked contained some pretty ripe language. I figured this would be fine so I didn't contact a mod or anything, but since this thread is open I might as well ask:

Adding a "NSFW" or its equivalent is kosher, right?
posted by Ice Cream Socialist at 8:47 PM on October 5, 2012

Yeah, that's something we would have done for you before, so it's fine now. (It is about the only content-related edit we'd make, though - that and fixing borked links.)
posted by restless_nomad (staff) at 8:49 PM on October 5, 2012

Worst case scenario, we'll get Clippy to help out


Dude, that is just evil.
posted by St. Alia of the Bunnies at 8:56 PM on October 5, 2012

Welcome to Christmas Eve, too much wine, and a toy that should have been assembled at the factory....!

"We have an original Leatherman, a Yankee Screwdriver, a tube of Gorilla Glue and an instruction PDF in Urdu. It's dark out, and we're wearing sunglasses."

"Hit it!"
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:59 PM on October 5, 2012 [4 favorites]

Here's an edge case I'd like an opinion on - I put together a comment. I didn't like the way I had phrased it (something like "Because A, B, and that's not considering C" but then I decided that "Even if we ignore C, A still gives us B" was better) only, somehow, I cut B and didn't fix it and so the sentence trailed off into oblivion. But wait thought I - I have this swanky new edit tool and I can go put "B." back into place and not look like I had an aneurysm before I quite finished my post. So I did.

Lest I turn into a reckless scofflaw, how far away is a hamfisted ctrl-X from typing "they're" when you meant to type "their" in the eyes of the mods.

And yes, I realize an unprincipled person might use this logic to defend the argument - Well yes, I know I typed "I hope you get cancer and die in a fire!" but what I meant to type was "The bald eagle is a powerful symbol of American independence." If I ever do this, please contact some of the St. Louis types and invoke this protocol.
posted by Kid Charlemagne at 9:38 PM on October 5, 2012

People are editing for things more substantive than typos. Should they be doing that?

No, unless you're a fan of a certain kind of chaos.

Speaking of which, I think five minutes is way too long for the edit window. Two seems more rational ... except, of course, some folks do post very long comments.
posted by philip-random at 9:40 PM on October 5, 2012 [3 favorites]

Edit is nice, but I'm not wedded to it yet so if it needs to be withdrawn to improve the functioning, go right ahead.
posted by arcticseal at 9:42 PM on October 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

We should get rid of the edit feature. It seemed like a good idea at first, but if editing decisions are going to get bullied and/or modded to death, maybe it is better just to get rid of it.

It didn’t seem like a good idea at first. Or now.
posted by bongo_x at 9:57 PM on October 5, 2012 [1 favorite]

The idea "at first" was for typo/error correction only. How do you stay true to this idea without moderation?
posted by ODiV at 10:01 PM on October 5, 2012

cortex: Worst case scenario, we'll get Clippy to help out.

Not completely out of the question...
posted by chinesefood at 10:06 PM on October 5, 2012 [2 favorites]

Please don't do this.
posted by Kevin Street at 10:30 PM on October 5, 2012

It didn’t seem like a good idea at first.

This was always my angle on the edit window. In fact, I didn't seriously think it would ever be implemented, so never bothered to argue my position that hard.

But suddenly we had it and, in a way, I could see how it could work. IF people got it straight that the ONLY THING THEY'RE ALLOWED TO DO WITH IT IS FIX A TYPO -- not clarify a point, not add an analogy, not remove a bit of heat-of-the-moment grarr or trolling. Because as soon as you've done anything like that, you've created a situation where people are responding to something you've said ... except it's not there anymore. Which, like I suggested a few comments back, leads quickly to the wrong kind of chaos ... and thus the need for more moderation ... and so on.
posted by philip-random at 10:46 PM on October 5, 2012 [6 favorites]

This is just like the end of Lawrence of Arabia, except we're the Arabs and the mods are the British general and we're just running wild and blowing up the utilities and mathowie's all "let them have their pony. Yes ... yes ... let them have their precious edit window pony." And I'm one of the people who edited to add and I can see all the mangled and amputated threads laying around, moaning, with no water, but the mods are the British medical officer and they're just "look! look!" and we're just cackling and sort of sinking to the ground and going "ah ah ah ahhhhhhh!" in that open-mouth crying thing that means overcome, but then we're in the shower crying, and it's running but we're still dressed and the mods are all "I can't do this anymore" and we're thinking back to before intermission, when we sashayed around behind that dune because EDIT WINDOW. But then mathowie sort of smiles a mysterious smile and says "the trick, dear Mefite, is not minding that you made a typo" and that's just fucking aces because clearly the edit-to-add ones were being Peter O'Toole but now suddenly matthowie is Peter O'Toole and if we go in and try to fix things up, then we're just back to blowing up the waterworks.
posted by mph at 11:04 PM on October 5, 2012 [18 favorites]

Here's an edge case I'd like an opinion on

Not a good use. The next comment may be "what about B, though?" because it was submitted before your change, or because the person was loading new comments and not refreshing the page, so they're not seeing that edit. And then someone comes along and sees a comment where you've (now) addressed B, and the next comment is saying "what about B?" Confusion.

See?

Fixing your text to change "their" to "they're" or "missspelling" to "mispelling" isn't going to cause any weirdness in the thread.

We will all have to see how we work this, but in the past there have been hundreds of asides like "aargh, I meant they're -- my kingdom for an edit window!". I think we can hang with some in-thread correction in the beginning here and evaluate and adjust as needed.
posted by taz (staff) at 11:29 PM on October 5, 2012

I hereby confess my sin of editing this comment to include Common. "I was impure, impurity, and impureness in thought, word, and deed..."

I will never edit for content again.
posted by knile at 11:43 PM on October 5, 2012

Thanks. :)

As silly as may seem... yeah, such a use is a problem. You edit to include "Common"; next comment says "Also, I'd include 'Common' in that list."

This makes it look like the next poster has not really read the comments, when in fact it was THE SIN OF EDITING FOR CONTENT. Go forth and sin no more.
posted by taz (staff) at 12:07 AM on October 6, 2012 [3 favorites]

Man, I used to think that social pressure could maintain norms. But just look at how much that god awful @username twitter bullshit has infiltrated the site. We have pretty much given up on correcting people when then pull that shit. I seriously hope that this does not become another thing that used to Not Be Done that now is.
posted by Rhomboid at 12:19 AM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Editing Sucks #embracethetypo
posted by mannequito at 12:51 AM on October 6, 2012 [4 favorites]

F*** perfection. Typos will come to be like scratches + pops on vinyl records. Marks of character.
posted by philip-random at 12:55 AM on October 6, 2012 [7 favorites]

There are instructions? Not sure how I missed those because I'm pretty sure the one time I've used it, I also couldn't stop myself editing for content -- even though I was really just intending to clarify.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:08 AM on October 6, 2012

OK, I see them now. But they do kind of make the whole edit function somewhat pointless. Like philip-random, I don't really care about typos. People generally get what they are, and don't care. I'd be most likely to use it when I realize that the wording I've used makes my point unclear or ambiguous, and so I'd want to go back and clarify or remove the ambiguity.

If that's an inappropriate use, then the function really has no value for me.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 1:14 AM on October 6, 2012 [11 favorites]

The ETA thing is my normal mode on tumblr, where I edit my own posts constantly and add new things all the time. I've seen other people in my text-heavy corner of tumblr do the same. Honestly, it seems like the polite thing to do, to label that a comment has been edited for content or meaning, rather than leave people confused.

To harken back to an ancient internet creature, Livejournal's comment editing is only available until the comment has been replied to. This has a certain way of cutting down on the ETA stuff during heated arguments - if someone's paying close enough attention to the thread to reply immediately, even to a comment full of typos or unclear meaning, then the original commenter is forced to keep their comment as-is, or delete it entirely. That way the only "I never said that! Where did you see me saying that??" stuff gets nipped in the bud anywhere that it might actually matter.

Of course, on MeFi, you can't close an edit window for fixing typos when there is a new comment on a post, because that would defeat the intention. But I think that allowing for clarification of content, if further discussion has already occurred, as long as you indicate that the comment has been edited, like with an ETA, would be more in-line with the site's general policies about honesty and responsibility for one's words.

ETA: I just used the edit feature to fix my html! Please don't take my edit window away from me!
posted by Mizu at 1:18 AM on October 6, 2012

I'm used to editing only on the phpBB-type forums that I'm on, and there it's a very double-edged towards. There's a fair amount of "edited to add" that gets put in with content, but it works out, mostly. Because they're SMALL GROUPS, and since it says when it was edited, if you edit to include, 'Oh, and X!" and the next comment is, "But what about X?" then it's pretty obvious what happened because the comment is timestamped 4:25 and the edit is timestamped 4:27. And people would be more likely to stop and look at those things when the whole userbase is a hundred people, not... however many Metafilter has now.

I'm not sure, from what I see so far, if this is really a net positive. I'm not sure that it's ever really going to sink in for a lot of people that, here, you can edit, but not the way you can edit on other places that you can edit. At the same time, I sorely DO NOT WANT anybody to start getting into the ETA mode when in the midst of things like the debate thread. The other places where ETA is okay do not have the kind of activity that Metafilter has.

Overall, I myself used to think this would be nice, but now I think I preferred the typos. If anything, they've made me more careful about revsing what I write before I post.
posted by gracedissolved at 1:36 AM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

MetaTalk: there it's a very double-edged towards.
posted by cgc373 at 2:01 AM on October 6, 2012

I'd be most likely to use it when I realize that the wording I've used makes my point unclear or ambiguous, and so I'd want to go back and clarify or remove the ambiguity.

If that's an inappropriate use, then the function really has no value for me.

Yeah, it's certainly something that may not have value for some people, and that's okay. There is still the live preview and the regular preview for reviewing your comments, and those are very helpful for me. I use both of them every time I comment, and if I need to further clarify, I do it in another comment.

The edit window functionality is in response to years of people asking for a way to fix typos/html. If people had been asking for an edit window to be able to rewrite or add content to comments, the answer would have remained, "yeah, no, not something we want to do here." As with any site change, there will be a learning curve, and this is no reason to despair. Yet. :)
posted by taz (staff) at 2:05 AM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Maybe the edit function could be moved into a different area, like comment activity, rather than attached to the comment itself? It would be a bit of a pain to click through to, but the fact that you're being put on a different page without the thread context needed to make content changes might be more obviously deliberate (if that makes sense).

It looks like a standard forum edit feature at the moment, and I'd n'th that I've always assumed it was polite to manually mention when you've edited something.
posted by lucidium at 3:15 AM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Why are we all so upset about the estimated time of arrival?
posted by sciencegeek at 3:51 AM on October 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

I've been traveling so I didn't have time to get into the guts of the edit window MeTa, but I'm honestly quite taken aback that the edit window is only there to fix typos and html. That seems like a much more powerful tool than is necessary for the job, like opening a beer can with a backhoe. Yes, it's possible and kinda cool, but it's clearly not the appropriate tool for the job.

Honestly, 99 and 44/100% of typos are easy to parse and the rest are unlikely to cause any havoc. I thought the principal argument for the edit window was that it would be a good tool for people who post something in a moment of anger and then regret it.

The only edit I've done so far was that I added a sentence to unsnide a jibe seconds after the comment had been posted. It didn't even occur to me that this was problematic. I won't do it again, but this was my instinctual way of using the edit window.
posted by Kattullus at 4:20 AM on October 6, 2012 [4 favorites]

I reckon the edit window is sort of like a typo that the admins have made and so they should be allowed to remove it within a certain time limit.
posted by memebake at 4:25 AM on October 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

or "missspelling" to "mispelling"

EDIT: "misspelling"
posted by Horace Rumpole at 4:37 AM on October 6, 2012

ETA old men are creepy LOL amirite?
posted by fixedgear at 4:51 AM on October 6, 2012

You'd have to fix your URL by posting a new comment or get a shortened link?

What's the point of having an edit window if you can't correct typos?

Also, shortened links are considered 'mystery meat' and are frowned upon around here. There has been at least one MeTa discussion about them in the past. If we were forced to use them, to keep people happy we'd also need to add text describing which site they point to. Again, we might run into character limit issues. Especially if in our hypothetical example, we're fixing more than one link, or making multiple corrections.
posted by zarq at 5:13 AM on October 6, 2012

Well, what if edits over a certain character threshold went into a moderation queue instead of immediately going live? I'm just trying to think of technical solutions to preventing ETA (if that's what we want to do), rather than relying on reminders or trusting people to read the instructions.
posted by gerryblog at 5:33 AM on October 6, 2012

If the site needs to new mods for the care and feeding of an edit window intended for just typos/usage errors, than it may be more trouble then its worth.
posted by klarck at 5:46 AM on October 6, 2012 [3 favorites]

Just my 2¢……..
I don’t post that much so I haven’t used the edit window (since it has appeared). However, I really like having it for the simple reason that invariably, I will write a comment, preview the hell out of it, spell check it in Word but as soon as hit “Post Comment” I will see a word that I missed, a sentence that was redundant, some weird typo or any number of things I wish I could change. I suppose it is just a stupid habit that I cannot seem to shake, but having the edit window is going to help that immensely.

I suppose the typos that I end up seeing in the posted comment are more apparent because the layout of the text flow changes from preview window to posted page. The preview window is about only 60% of the screen as opposed to the posted comment area, so when the comment goes live the changed layout makes certain aspects of the comment more noticeable. And even though the preview does show the final layout, for some reason, that one comment seems to elude me. So yeah, my issue probably and it seems nobody else is complaining about this.

Well, whatever. I hope the edit window stays. Maybe a reduction in the edit time could solve some of these issues with people abusing the feature. For my part, if I am making more than few edits or ones that take more than 3 minutes, then I should be re-thinking what I was going to say altogether and start fresh.

Again, just my 2¢……..

[yeah, and i did a teeny little editing of this post]
posted by lampshade at 5:53 AM on October 6, 2012

Okay, well it seems clear to me now that of those few who do read the guidelines, not everyone is getting the gist of them.
posted by ODiV at 6:06 AM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Maybe you could save the original and let users access it by clicking some dealiebopper on the posted-by line. (Just the original; intermediate edits couldn't be seen but c'est la.)

It's hard for the community to enforce something we can't see happen.
posted by fleacircus at 6:26 AM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Previously I did not notice my typos until after I posted my comment.

Now, I do not notice my typos until five minutes and one second after I post my comment.
posted by subbes at 6:26 AM on October 6, 2012 [8 favorites]

Eh, it's a learning proceed.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 6:29 AM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

I really don't see how there is any way to enforce this.
posted by nathancaswell at 6:29 AM on October 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

So as a parent, I can tell you that the best way to enforce behavior is to set up consequences for breaking the rules. I think if the mods get strict about deleting comments that are edited for content or include ETA disclaimers, people will get the message pretty quickly.
posted by Rock Steady at 6:35 AM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

I would guess that it will be enforced the same way almost everything else is around here. There are a range of possible responses from gentle in-thread nudging to private communication right up to outright banning.
posted by ODiV at 6:44 AM on October 6, 2012

Honestly, 99 and 44/100% of typos are easy to parse and the rest are unlikely to cause any havoc.

This is true from an individual user perspective. It's not true for the class of users who are made crazy by typos (theirs or others') and for some reason we have a lot of them here. We've explained our thinking process and we went forward with the feature fully understanding that the way we'd prefer it to be used isn't going to be totally technologically restrained and that some people will either not find a use for it or not like it.

Keeping threads free of "AAAAhhhhh typo!" comments and our inbox free of "Can you please fix this typo for me" is something we-as-mods value and felt that a small adjustment might be able to make that a reality. And as far as toning down the snark content of a comment you've already made, we'd really prefer that sort of assessment took place before the Post button was clicked. We understand this may be unrealistic, but especially in fast-moving threads, we'd really like people to try.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:46 AM on October 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

If the problem lies with a subset of the population, maybe the edit feature should only be available to a subset of the population, by appeal.

That is, if this continues to be problematic.

I was pessimistic about this... but now that you've implemented, I want to believe the community can handle it. People seem to be unclear that "typos" do not include minor content errors like "forgot to include X in my list."
posted by zennie at 7:07 AM on October 6, 2012

Comment I'm making just to look at the edit rules again.
posted by zennie at 7:12 AM on October 6, 2012

If the problem lies with a subset of the population, maybe the edit feature should only be available to a subset of the population, by appeal.

Segregation probably isn't the way to go on this.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:16 AM on October 6, 2012

Segregation is a strong term to describe a feature you get by request, which can be disabled if you abuse it. It's more like a license.
posted by zennie at 7:23 AM on October 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

Just looking at the rules.
posted by Mr. Yuck at 7:33 AM on October 6, 2012

How about we give it more than a week before speculating on the mechanics of making this harder to use.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 7:36 AM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

To be clear, I'm just throwing ideas out there.

This is how the edit page reads now, so everyone can see without commenting:

Fix Typos
Editing was added October 1st. Please visit MetaTalk to discuss this feature. Here are a few ground rules:

• Please don't add/change/delete the content of a comment. This is for typos and small fixes only. Write an additional comment or contact the mods if there's a bigger issue.
• Please don't add "edit: [reason for edit]" type notes to your comments. It's distracting and unnecessary.
• Take a look at the FAQ about editing for more information.

I think the big question is how to get this to make people think along the lines of, "what might I have contacted the mods to do for me, if I didn't have this feature?" Because there is definitely a line there in most peoples' minds. You might contact about an grammar/code error, but you wouldn't contact about a missing adjective, for example.

Also I would just put everything on this page, and use the FAQ for 'what's the community purpose of the edit feature' and to have a copy of these rules.
posted by zennie at 7:37 AM on October 6, 2012

I'm quite happy if the edit window goes away or is made an option on the profile page. 5 mins is too long a window to fix a typo as typically the process goes - hit Post, "gah! Typo", edit typo. My feeling is that you can accomplish that in 2 mins. 5 mins just encourages tweaking and additional comments.
posted by arcticseal at 8:12 AM on October 6, 2012 [5 favorites]

Segregation is a strong term to describe a feature you get by request, which can be disabled if you abuse it. It's more like a license.

Define 'abuse it'. Then consider how the community dynamic changes if you're asking the mods to be the gatekeepers on who gets to use a particular feature. Correct me if I'm wrong, but currently users either get access to the site or if they're misbehaving, they don't. What you're talking about sounds like creating two different classes of users: those who can use the edit feature and those who can't. Deciding who goes in the latter sounds problematic and not good for the community.
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 8:17 AM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

zennie: "You'd have to fix your URL by posting a new comment or get a shortened link?"

Inxay on the shortened links. Except for self hosted link shorteners (IE: stuff like youtu.be links) they aren't allowed here.

gerryblog: "he fact that ETA is common in other places on the net, it seems inevitable that either these sorts of requests will have to be made continuously forever or the mods will eventually give up and ETA will become normalized."

I don't know. That goofy @username thing is essentially stamped out here. Noobs use it; get chastised for it, and then stop doing it.

ODiV: "The idea "at first" was for typo/error correction only. How do you stay true to this idea without moderation?"

You wouldn't of course but TADA! we have moderation.

Rhomboid: "But just look at how much that god awful @username twitter bullshit has infiltrated the site. We have pretty much given up on correcting people when then pull that shit."

I correct people on this all the time; usually with a link to the wiki page and they stop doing it. In the last couple years I've only gotten one hostile reaction and even that person stopped doing it. Really these sorts of conventions are self enforcing; few want to be in the shunned outer group even those that don't want to be in the in group.
posted by Mitheral at 8:45 AM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Brandon Blatcher: " Then consider how the community dynamic changes if you're asking the mods to be the gatekeepers on who gets to use a particular feature."

The mods already have this power; they can decide who gets to use the post button.

I don't think we should do this because it would fragment the user experience (one of the reasons I oppose inline display of favourites) and it would add YetAnotherOptionToTheConfigurationPage however the mechanics of implementation aren't much different than other things the mods deal with now.
posted by Mitheral at 8:50 AM on October 6, 2012

I typed "her" when I meant to type "here" one time, which turned an otherwise innocuous comment into a horrifyingly pornographic and sexist blunder, and the half an hour waiting for a mod to please, please fix it was one of the longest of my life. I'm so, so glad to have this feature although I have seen the mods all over the site stamping out little flare-ups the last few days.

I do hope this results in a lot less "OMG TYPO" comments which in themselves are awfully noisy, a lot less ruined jokes, and a lot less please, please fix my horrid typo requests for the mods in the long-run.

There is a gray area of acceptability for me that might be nice to get mod clarification on, such as when there's not an obvious spelling error, but when say a word was omitted, or a sentence poorly constructed to the point that the comment reads the opposite of ones actual intent, like typing "I love Romney," when clearly I meant to type "I don't love Romney." Would quicky adding the "don't" in that circumstance equate fixing a typo, or would you prefer clarification in a subsequent comment, because I see people mangling their intent then immediately clarifying moments later quite often, simply as a result of their brains getting ahead of their hands.
posted by Devils Rancher at 8:53 AM on October 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

There is a gray area of acceptability for me that might be nice to get mod clarification on

Omitting a word is a typo. Fix it quickly and move on.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:02 AM on October 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

Geez I do the dropping a don't thing all the time. I hope it is at least tentatively allowed in slow moving threads and AskMe because really it's the only thing I'll probably use the edit feature for. I think. It is certainly the only time I've posted follow up grammar correction comments. Could be the lure of being able to fix misspellings will have me doing that too though I've never bothered a mod with it.
posted by Mitheral at 9:03 AM on October 6, 2012

The piece people are concerned about here seems to be to be accountability. If theres no way to know what the original comment was, then theres no way to tell whether its been substantively changed.

Perhaps there could be a UI cue to let readers know that the comment has been edited? Ideally I'd say that a way to view the original would be ideal in terms of accountability, but simply an "edited" flag might be helpful (and encourage the "ETA" behavior, if need be.)

Alternately, Wikipedia requires a comment when making edits, maybe this might be helpful (even if its not visible on the front-end)?

I do think also that it might be useful to limit the amount of edits available per-post (not on a character basis, but you really should only be able to edit something you say to fix typos once, without having to talk to a mod.)
posted by softlord at 9:04 AM on October 6, 2012

Mitheral: My comment was in response to Blazecock Pileon's which was much closer when I started writing it so I didn't bother quoting.
posted by ODiV at 9:04 AM on October 6, 2012

EIAMO!
posted by mendel at 9:04 AM on October 6, 2012

Perhaps there could be a UI cue to let readers know that the comment has been edited?

My sense is that the noise and bother of people wanting to know exactly what the edit was would defeat half of the purpose of allowing us to perform our own edits, mod-wise. Visible edit history would also result in conversations being about the edit instead of the post.

It's a two-pronged problem-- users wanting to be able to fix things, and threads getting noisy as a result. A visible "edited" state will just trade one sort of noise for another.
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:13 AM on October 6, 2012

Omitting a word is a typo. Fix it quickly and move on.

Thanks! Just wanted to make sure i understood the spirit of "Please don't add/change/delete the content of a comment."
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:16 AM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

My sense is that the noise and bother of people wanting to know exactly what the edit was would defeat half of the purpose of allowing us to perform our own edits, mod-wise. Visible edit history would also result in conversations being about the edit instead of the post.

Probably, though mostly due to there being a limited edit window. In forums without an edit window, you will typically see "Last edited by [X] at [time][date]" and this raises few questions where people ask what was edited. I think with a much smaller window, questioning what the edit was would likely only happen in contentious threads or with contentious users. So while not constant, it would be enough to be an unnecessary patch of noise.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 9:19 AM on October 6, 2012

(And just to clarify: I support a limited edit window.)
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 9:22 AM on October 6, 2012

I understand why "edited to add" isn't good because at this point in time we're not supposed to use the edit button for adding stuff (I say "at this point in time" because I think the edit button is too powerful a tool for merely fixing typos and in time community pressure will inevitably lead to substantive edits becoming the norm). But attaching an automatically generated "edited at foo thirty six" to the end of the comment seems like a kindness to other members who might worry for their sanity or short-term memory when the comment they read as "I love Romney" becomes "I don't love Romney."

Although maybe I just think this because I dislike the edit button in general, and so I want those to use it to wear a scarlet letter.
posted by Bookhouse at 9:25 AM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

jessamyn: This is true from an individual user perspective. It's not true for the class of users who are made crazy by typos (theirs or others') and for some reason we have a lot of them here.

I understand that feeling completely. I used to be that way myself until I bashed typophobia out of my skull using the mental equivalent of a rock tied to a stick. And I realize that it's ridiculous that mods should be fixing user typos in cases other than it changing the meaning and tone completely (e.g. typing fuck instead of duck or forgetting a crucial not). But I'm not sure that an edit window lessens the mod workload if it requires constant monitoring. That said, I'm not a mod so I'm merely speculating.

And as far as toning down the snark content of a comment you've already made, we'd really prefer that sort of assessment took place before the Post button was clicked. We understand this may be unrealistic, but especially in fast-moving threads, we'd really like people to try.

Oh, absolutely. I usually edit the crap out of my comment, especially in threads where emotions are running high. But when I'm writing a comment my brain seems to be in a slightly different mode from when I'm reading a comment in a thread. Every once in a while I write something that, as I edit it, seems completely innocuous, but once posted and my brain switches modes, I can suddenly see a harsher meaning to my comment that was not intended at all.

I've been trying to figure out what my problem with the current edit window guidelines boils down to. I think it's basically that I don't really perceive typos as a problem on this site. Yes, it's annoying for the individual user making the typo, but for the readers of the comment, it's a minor irritant at worst (and for most readers, something they don't even notice). However, badly worded comments that inflame a sensitive thread is a problem for the community as a whole.

Being able to edit your comments is a powerful tool, and using it only for a problem that doesn't affect the community as a whole, while explicitly forbidding its use for a problem that does, seems like the wrong way to go about it.
posted by Kattullus at 9:25 AM on October 6, 2012 [7 favorites]

However, badly worded comments that inflame a sensitive thread is a problem for the community as a whole.

Having a little charitibility when attempting to discern someone's intent in a poorly-worded comment is something that I'd like to see us as users more able to do, in general, as lots of arguments stem from uncharitable readings brought on by ambiguity. That's a personal growth issue for the individual user, though.

I have seen plenty of typos though that were bad enough that I had to make a couple passes through just to parse the comment, so it seems like a real problem to me that this helps solve.
posted by Devils Rancher at 9:33 AM on October 6, 2012

using it only for a problem that doesn't affect the community as a whole

With respect, your assessment of what doesn't affect the community as a whole and ours are different. This is not a big deal, but sometimes we create features for a small subset of users (mobile users, people using older browsers, people who may not live in major cities) because we believe that the feature will be useful to them while not negatively impacting the site as a whole. We took a risk on this one, one that was based to a large degree about the length of time that this has been an open feature request, the number of edit fix emails that we get [and "aaaa typo" comments we delete] and the amount of time that we edit our own typos [5% ish]. So it felt like a good idea to us.

Preliminary assessment after the first few days is that the number of "fix my typo" emails and "aaaa typo" comments have dropped to almost zero, people do not seem to be abusing the feature and the rare times people seem confused we've been able to talk to them. There are a ton of edits happening and they're almost all mild typo fixes. We are happy with this.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:33 AM on October 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

Being able to edit your comments is a powerful tool, and using it only for a problem that doesn't affect the community as a whole, while explicitly forbidding its use for a problem that does, seems like the wrong way to go about it.

I think this is fair, but there's already things in place for the problem of badly-worded/impulsive comments: community policing and, failing that, moderation. The edit function doesn't need to be used to dial back tone and content because there's already ways to do that, from the user end, the community end, and the moderation end.

Fixing typos isn't just a grammarian exercise, either, I don't think. People have already mentioned examples of typos that have led to significant understandings. How often those occur is up for debate, but I think a 5-minute edit window is a graceful solution to that.
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing at 9:34 AM on October 6, 2012

the number of edit fix emails that we get [and "aaaa typo" comments we delete]

Just curious, were y'all seeing an uptick in the "can you fix my typo" emails and didn't that factor into the decision to release this feature?
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 9:36 AM on October 6, 2012

I didn't really see the need for it to begin with, so there's a bit of bias there, but here's my most recent take on it. I saw it used in a thread by a user where the use was iffy-ish. I then saw the user as arguing in bad faith in all of their posts, when in fact the user could be operating on a misunderstanding of what the feature is meant for.

I mean, I could always work harder to interact with all folks positively, which I will, but it does seem like it kind of turns up the temperature on the site necessarily.

And I teach composition; I'd be horrified with a their/they're mistake that I've probably made somewhere. Still don't really see the need for an edit function.
posted by angrycat at 9:39 AM on October 6, 2012

Dear mods,
Please consider adding a little tiny preference feature so that I can turn off the edit window for myself. I find it very tempting to add or delete a word, even tho I only meant to change that word to though. I would stress less over my comment if I could just say, "Oh, well, it's done. Never mind the typos," and get on with my life. Instead of having 5 minutes of agony about how to fix the thing.

And, anyway, while I'm editing "tho" to "though," what if someone pops in to say, "Hey SLC Mom, its 'though', not 'tho', you fool!"
Although the "you fool" would be implied, of course, because we don't call people names here. And then I would say, "Clearly I know that, and it's it's you idiot," because I get cranky and impulsive when people call me a fool in my head, and it would just be a shitstorm from there and I would end up banned and silenced all my life.

So, please, can we have a turn off option?
posted by SLC Mom at 9:43 AM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

So, please, can we have a turn off option?

We specifically wrote it so that it would be easy to code a Greasmonkey script that would hide it from people but we're not planning to add a "hide" function for it on our side at this time. We'll axe any weird typo-shaming comments.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:47 AM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Honestly, it seems like the polite thing to do, to label that a comment has been edited for content or meaning, rather than leave people confused.

But what if someone's already responded to your original wording, then someone else has responded to that response, and so on times ten. This can easily happen within five minutes in a fast moving thread.

Omitting a word is a typo. Fix it quickly and move on.

But what if that one word has triggered a shitstorm of whatever ... ? Hell, as Devil's Rancher pointed out, it could be one letter.

The more I think about all this, the more I come out against the edit window. Because it reminds me of the degree to which I think of a Metafilter discussion, when it's really humming, as an online, text-version of a busy, happening social occasion (could be a dinner party, could be an argument at a bar, could be a bus stop bench). Whatever it is, it's informal, mildly chaotic, prone to imperfection. As at a dinner party, a bar, a bus stop bench, sometimes people will use a wrong word, the wrong pronunciation of a word, an over dramatic voicing of an idea ... which, if noticed and called out by others in the situation, can be amended. But usually what happens is that the others either A. don't even notice it, or B. just shrug and move on ...

Adding an edit window to all of this, is like having the Tardis show up.
posted by philip-random at 10:09 AM on October 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

jessamyn: With respect, your assessment of what doesn't affect the community as a whole and ours are different. This is not a big deal, but sometimes we create features for a small subset of users (mobile users, people using older browsers, people who may not live in major cities) because we believe that the feature will be useful to them while not negatively impacting the site as a whole. We took a risk on this one, one that was based to a large degree about the length of time that this has been an open feature request, the number of edit fix emails that we get [and "aaaa typo" comments we delete] and the amount of time that we edit our own typos [5% ish]. So it felt like a good idea to us.

Looking back at my last comment, I see I wasn't clear enough. When I meant "the community as a whole" I meant that an overwhelming majority of typos can only affect the mood of one person, the user who made the typo. However, unintentionally inflammatory comments affect the mood of a large number of users. I wasn't disputing that a lot of users get upset when they make typos. I have sent at least a couple of e-mails to mods to fix typos through the years when I've gotten someone's name wrong in a post.

I'm not against the edit window. I'm pretty sure that the community will end up using it only for typos and anything that allows the mods to focus on more important matters than spelling errors is a good thing.
posted by Kattullus at 10:09 AM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

I'm not the sort that thinks we can solve behavioral issues with technical solutions, but I'll throw this idea out there anyway: what if the five minute edit window was cut short once another comment is made in the thread? In other words, the edit button only appears if the five minutes have not yet expired AND it's the last (loaded) comment in the thread?
posted by ceribus peribus at 10:17 AM on October 6, 2012 [3 favorites]

But what if that one word has triggered a shitstorm of whatever ... ? Hell, as Devil's Rancher pointed out, it could be one letter.

I'd say, what's the current situation pre-edit-feature if some little thing sets off a shitstorm? Shitstorms are unpredicatable and flare up quickly, people need to (a) use sense and care to try and avoid starting them and (b) use restraint and kindness to avoid perpetuating them.

So, if you find yourself in the weird edge case of

- committing a small but vital typographic error
- promptly correcting that typo, and
- having a shitstorm start up in the ensuing couple of minutes regardless

then that's an okay weird edge case situation to add another comment to say "oh hey that was a terrible tiny typo, I fixed it but not apparently quickly enough, but hey, my meaning should be clear now, sorry!"

In pretty much every other circumstance (which is going to be the vast majority of circumstances), there's no shitstorm to consider and things should be pretty much okay with everybody just proceeding with the thread as they were.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:18 AM on October 6, 2012 [4 favorites]

Also, the flagging mechanism has not been taken away. If someone responds to a typo uncharitably as you are fixing the typo, flag that shit.
posted by Devils Rancher at 10:22 AM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

I just wanted to nth the suggestion that some of this may be fixed with a shorter window - 3 minutes, for example. If you're writing a super long comment that you can't physically re-read in 3 minutes, the burden should be probably on the you to be extra careful prior to posting.
posted by Phire at 10:31 AM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

So, please, can we have a turn off option?

We specifically wrote it so that it would be easy to code a Greasmonkey script that would hide it from people but we're not planning to add a "hide" function for it on our side at this time. We'll axe any weird typo-shaming comments.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 9:47 AM on October 6 [+] [!]


I accept that we are going to use the feature as is until it has had a good long trial, and it will probably be excellent once we all get used to it.
Please be aware tho that not everyone can use Greasemonkey. I couldn't write a script for it to save my life, and even if I download someone else's, I can't run Firefox on my phone, my tablet, or my locked-down work computer. It is not an option for some (many?) of us.

Also, it is amazing how any change in the site creates such a tempest. And that I have thrown myself into it. #mustgetalife
:-)
posted by SLC Mom at 10:47 AM on October 6, 2012

I can see how substantive revision of a published comment could be quite problematic (trollish or limiting for innocent forms of repartée), but if you're hot to jump all over someone's comment that's less than five minutes old and don't hit preview to see whether it has changed, it may also be fair to ask whether the problem is you.
posted by Monsieur Caution at 10:55 AM on October 6, 2012

#mustgetalife

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaARGGY RAAAGH GET THAT TWITTER SHIT OUT OF HERE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARrrrrrrghgghgh arararagg
posted by nathancaswell at 11:31 AM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

SLC Mom: "Also, it is amazing how any change in the site creates such a tempest. And that I have thrown myself into it. #mustgetalife"

At least it was a fairly unobtrusive add rather than a removal; that ... doesn't tend to go well.
posted by Mitheral at 12:03 PM on October 6, 2012

For anyone who wants to switch off editing with Greasemonkey (I don't count myself among that number, I'm looking forward to enthusiastically making my typos vanish), you can now use my shiny new No MeFi Editing script. Drop me a message if you have problems with it. (Or edit it yourself, it's barely 20 lines long and that includes all the metadata.)
posted by ZsigE at 12:28 PM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

I don't want to alarm you nathancaswell but you may have made a typo.
posted by mannequito at 12:51 PM on October 6, 2012

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaARGGY RAAAGH GET THAT TWITTER SHIT OUT OF HERE AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARrrrrrrghgghgh arararagg

#SILENCEDALLMYLIFE
posted by arcticseal at 1:04 PM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

You can make that script a lot simpler: GM_addStyle('.editmessage { display: none !important }');
posted by Rhomboid at 1:08 PM on October 6, 2012

Y'all are funny. Plus you can write in Greasemonkey. It's like hanging out with people who can speak Latin or something. It makes me feel smarter.
posted by SLC Mom at 1:16 PM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

I've used it a couple of times to fix typos, such as "bit" to "big" but guess I am not nefarious enough to think of other uses. In the case that I don't catch my typos, I would guess people could figure out my meaning, despite my errors.

I appreciate the edit window, but I have never emailed a mod to ask them to fix my typos.

I just think you all are reading too much into this. If it were the IMG tag, maybe, but sheesh.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 1:52 PM on October 6, 2012

mentioned examples of typos that have led to significant understandings

I see what you didn't do there.

I can see how substantive revision of a published comment could be quite problematic (trollish or limiting for innocent forms of repartée), but if you're hot to jump all over someone's comment that's less than five minutes old and don't hit preview to see whether it has changed, it may also be fair to ask whether the problem is you.

This is perhaps why what cortex characterized as a weird edge case, minus the caveat about typos versus more substantive edits, is not, in my experience in other places with edit features, a weird edge case. Thread-continuity and -coherence issues arise all the time from substantive editing combined with those hot to jump over folks' comments, but those issues are very rarely the result of minor typographical editing. Since hotness to jump is probably more or less constant in a given community, and since substantive edits are always likely to be troublesome when the hotness-to-jump-ostat is always cranked up, and since it seems like the feature was introduced to be used in a very specific way, maybe it makes sense to enforce the editing guidelines automatically.

Therefore, why not employ a hash function that is continuous in the sense that large changes in the hash value always reflect large changes in the original text, and run it on the new and old texts each time "edit" is clicked. If the hash values differ by more than a certain amount, reject the edit: "The MeFiBot has reason to believe you are doing more than fixing a minor typo, which is what edits are for, here.". More major changes could still be made, I guess, by a rapid sequence of edits, but that seems unlikely. Such a system would still allow easy changing of quickly-noticed fucks to bucks, though. I have no idea if such a thing is practical in this context, but it has the advantage that future MeFites who weren't here for the Genesis of Edits won't cause trouble while figuring out that the guideline is there for a reason and should be followed, and it would also forestall future MeTas about what seems like a dead issue.
posted by kengraham at 2:00 PM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

You can make that script a lot simpler: GM_addStyle('.editmessage { display: none !important }');

Ooh, interesting, I haven't played with GM's APIs yet. I will use this comment to test your code.
posted by ZsigE at 2:01 PM on October 6, 2012

And it works! Thanks Rhomboid, I've updated the version on userscripts.org to use your code instead.
posted by ZsigE at 2:03 PM on October 6, 2012

I haven't used the edit window yet. Haven't even seen it.

...OK, that's cool.
posted by Elmore at 2:33 PM on October 6, 2012

I don't mean to offend anyone, but it has been endlessly amusing to me how much these discussions about the edit window are an Eternal September kind of situation. The edit window has been discussed for years, and its form and implementation are exceedingly deliberate. To all the well-meaning people who have ideas for how to improve it, I promise you, your idea has already been considered and rejected. I swear, the mods must be ready to hellban the next person who mentions levenshtein distance.
posted by Rock Steady at 2:53 PM on October 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

Now that I have a net, maybe I won't fall so much.
posted by jamjam at 2:55 PM on October 6, 2012

I have used the edit option 2X.

One time was in the metatalk edit announcement thread and I felt compelled to test it out just like any 17 year old boy would. (me being >> 17 notwithstanding)

The second time I fixed a typo.

I am one of the people who has wanted this feature for a long time although I don't remember asking for it like so many did. I really really like having it available.
posted by bukvich at 3:15 PM on October 6, 2012

I'm happy to follow the rules, but I think there's a weird kind of contradiction between the opposition to "ETA" and the reasoning behind restricting the edit function to typos. The whole reason "ETA:" is a convention on most boards with edit windows is precisely to solve the discontinuity problems caused by content-edits. If someone adds some missing element to their post, thereby rendering all the subsequent "but what about X missing element?" comments meaningless, they also add an "ETA: I added in the obvious missing element, sorry for being a doofus," which keeps the flow of the thread comprehensible for latecomers. Or if they retract some fighty language they add an ETA to explain that.

This seems to me to work well and preserve thread readability on many, many sites: I'm not sure why it would be any different on Metafilter. But if all we can use the edit window for is fixing typos, I'm still enormously grateful for it; I can't count the number of times I've read and reread a post before clicking "Post Comment" and immediately seen a "their/they're" or a grocer's apostrophe carved into the Metafilter granite.
posted by yoink at 3:59 PM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Speaking of which, I think five minutes is way too long for the edit window. Two seems more rational ... except, of course, some folks do post very long comments.

I agree that cutting down the time limit on the window might curb this. I think the longest the window should be is two minutes. That is long enough to catch a typo, but not long enough to decide to rewrite the comment in some way.
posted by winna at 4:17 PM on October 6, 2012

I think that's a really good idea as well.
posted by mintcake! at 5:11 PM on October 6, 2012

Eternal September was why I thought a technical solution should be explored.
posted by gerryblog at 5:15 PM on October 6, 2012

Typos don't bother me, but I did find those "AAAAhhhhh typo!" comments from people who do find typos bothersome to be grating. And hey, to the extent this feature can prevent those comments, then we're both satisfied.

I think I've spotted edit abuse already. I'm sure it'll happen. I am reminded of a MetaTalk thread some years back where somebody made a vague claim that self-link FPPs happen "all the time" unbeknownst to the mods. It's possible that is true, but I think the mods do a good job of at least making this site appear to be well policed. Usually that's enough.
posted by cribcage at 6:18 PM on October 6, 2012

I think the mods do a good job of at least making this site appear to be well policed.

Well and if you think you see edit abuse happening you can flag it or tell us and we can tell with a fair amount of certainty if that's what's happening.
posted by jessamyn (staff) at 6:39 PM on October 6, 2012

This seems to me to work well and preserve thread readability on many, many sites: I'm not sure why it would be any different on Metafilter.

Because what's great about Metafilter is that it reads linearly without a ton of chaotic nonsense. As opposed to something like Reddit which is literally incomprehensible with all the threading and nonsense attached to comments.

But yeah, if you put a link that says, "Edit," people are gonna edit. I didn't know I wasn't supposed to "ETA," or what "ETA" stood for, until just now.
posted by drjimmy11 at 7:49 PM on October 6, 2012

I swear, the mods must be ready to hellban the next person who mentions levenshtein distance.

From the point of view of a relative newcomer (in the sense that I've never seen a Edits Discussion) who made an idle suggestion, this is not particularly appreciated. We're having a particular discussion about this issue in this particular thread; presumably the thread would be closed if the mods were "ready to hellban" people for good-faith suggestions, or if some official limit of discussion on this subject, known only to you and those who were here before the Semester started, was already reached before some of us showed up, or something.

Basically, an uncharitable-but-plausible reading of your comment, Rock Steady, is something like "hurf durf newfags lol", and a charitable interpretation is something like "Look at me! But do it from a distance exceeding the radius of my lawn, since I have seen many things happen and can speak for the people who implemented the feature even though I am not (?) among them."

That said, I should have read the thread more carefully, since it seems my sort of throwaway suggestion was more or less already made, so I see how what you're saying is very easily true. However, "All y'all's behaviour is endlessly amusing" is a pretty Eternal Septemberist-of-human-communication way of addressing people.
posted by kengraham at 7:50 PM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

Because what's great about Metafilter is that it reads linearly without a ton of chaotic nonsense.

But what I'm saying is that on sites where the "ETA:" note is the norm, the threads read linearly without any "chaos" or "nonsense." You read a comment, say, which says "My favorite band in the world is The Beatles. ETA: I corrected "Buggles" to "Beatles"" and you understand both what was originally meant AND the subsequent "OMG, really? The Buggles?" comments that follow.
posted by yoink at 8:19 PM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

kengraham, not sure if you saw this in the previous thread - but your mention of a "distance" check is already sort of happening, behind the scenes. In that thread, cortex linked to an image of what the mods see of this new feature. It includes a number attached to each edited comment, indicating how different the current version is from the original. (Though I realize you were also suggesting there be a threshold that automatically prevents further edits, and this doesn't do that.)
posted by LobsterMitten at 8:40 PM on October 6, 2012

I think the mods do a good job of at least making this site appear to be well policed.

Just to be extra clear, I didn't intend that line to have special significance or to function removed from its context.

I don't run an online forum, but I used to run a record store and I learned something about theft: You can't prevent it completely, but you can prevent about 90 percent of it by just maintaining a staff presence on the floor. They don't even need to be actively on the lookout for theft. It just needs to look like they might be. Do that, and most thieves will steal across the street. (We literally had a competing record store across the parking lot. That's exactly what happened.)

I imagine it's similar running an online forum. If you look like you're attentive, then most trolls and spammers will take their games across the street to the next website. In fact by contrast, I'd bet that if you are really thorough about policing your site but also really subtle about it, then you probably end up doing a lot more work. Appearance matters. It's a good thing.
posted by cribcage at 8:43 PM on October 6, 2012

Basically, an uncharitable-but-plausible reading of your comment, Rock Steady, is something like "hurf durf newfags lol"

Please don't put words like that in my mouth. Sorry if I've rubbed you the wrong way, but even the most cursory search of MetaTalk shows no less than 10 threads discussing the editing of comments, including two from this week. The consistent message from the mods has been that they have carefully designed this feature, and they are not planning to make any changes to how it operates, so yeah, it amuses me when people continue to make the same suggestions over and over again. I'm sure I do things that amuse others all the time, and I try not to get all bent out of shape about it when it is pointed out to me.
posted by Rock Steady at 9:10 PM on October 6, 2012

Thanks, LobsterMitten. I had not seen that.
posted by kengraham at 9:12 PM on October 6, 2012

Eeps. I did a (an?) "ETA" thingie. Where's the flagellation queue?
posted by deborah at 9:35 PM on October 6, 2012 [1 favorite]

ETAing seems utterly harmless to me, and should be allowed with this Edit tool. The blurry lines between changing your meaning and editing for clarity/typos I fear will be plentiful, and metatalk will begin to resemble a court of law even more than it already does. Instead, the mods should allow people to use the edit window any way they like, including to make jokes, and if they abuse it the mods should tell them to not be jerks. I trust their judgement a lot more than I trust this pretty arbitrary set of rules for how to use a common tool in a way that is not standard on any forum I've been on.
posted by Potomac Avenue at 10:26 PM on October 6, 2012 [2 favorites]

Rock Steady: Sorry if I've rubbed you the wrong way, but even the most cursory search of MetaTalk shows no less than 10 threads discussing the editing of comments, including two from this week. The consistent message from the mods has been that they have carefully designed this feature, and they are not planning to make any changes to how it operates, so yeah, it amuses me when people continue to make the same suggestions over and over again.

MetaTalk is not the most user friendly place to find information. After years of living in this place you pick up ways of going about it, but even people like us, who read the Gray near-religiously, sometimes search wrong. Well, I do, anyway.

I was traveling and thus didn't have much time to look at the now almost thousand comment edit window announcement thread. So when I wanted to look through the thread for discussion about redacted comments, I ctrl+f'd redacted and found a comment from pb which read to me like redacting comments was uncontroversial usage of the editing feature. I'm sure you've caught my error already, but I was tired and in a hurry so it wasn't until just now that I went back to the thread and ctrl+f'd redact and found two comments from cortex saying that redaction was not an intended use of the edit window.

My point is that the way policy is set and propagated to the userbase is through the endless discussion that is MetaTalk. It may seem amusing and/or exacerbating, but it's how MetaFilter functions, for better or worse (I'm firmly on the better side, incidentally). When new features are rolled out, especially ones as fundamental as the edit window, it takes a while for usage mores to spread to all users and become second nature to them. Until then, discussions like this are going to be common and the same ideas are going to crop up over and over again because nearly noone can read every MeTa thread, and going back to find information requires informed guesswork, persistence and luck.
posted by Kattullus at 3:01 AM on October 7, 2012 [2 favorites]

This is just like the end of Lawrence of Arabia

On the whole, the mods may wish they'd stayed in Tunbridge Wells.
posted by Egg Shen at 7:24 AM on October 7, 2012

Eeps. I did a (an?) "ETA" thingie. Where's the flagellation queue?

Down the hall, on the 2nd door on the left, the one marked "Political Speeches".
posted by Brandon Blatcher at 7:32 AM on October 7, 2012

I was an early ETA boundary-pusher, but I've been re-educated successfully!
posted by Mister_A at 7:55 AM on October 7, 2012

Flagellation? Pshaw. Our re-education camps feature pancakes with authentic Québécois maple syrup in unlabeled containers, artisan beers brewed by Pacific Northwest Beermistresses, giant bacon-peanut butter-honey-and-banana donuts, and, for some reason, a jar of pickled onions. We don't know why it works, it just does. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
posted by taz (staff) at 8:23 AM on October 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

Although if you prefer abuse, try room 12.
posted by ceribus peribus at 8:40 AM on October 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

> Basically, an uncharitable-but-plausible reading of your comment, Rock Steady, is something like "hurf durf newfags lol"

Please don't use words like "fag" here as an insult, even ironically.
posted by The corpse in the library at 9:30 AM on October 7, 2012 [5 favorites]

There used to be a jar of pickled onions. I eated them all.

I have been reëducated.
posted by subbes at 9:38 AM on October 7, 2012

Please don't use words like "fag" here as an insult, even ironically.

This is not a hill I want to die on, but:

1. I wasn't insulting anybody. As I pretty clearly indicated, I was giving a plausible uncharitable reading of another user's comment. That doesn't mean that's how I interpreted anything in my actual mind, just in one of the counterfactual minds that we should all keep running in parallel to our actual, emotionally-invested minds. I was just saying "A reasonable person trying to discern your intent might think you're just another one of millions of arrogant folk who hang out on message boards and say stupid things to insult newcomers". Since I wasn't insulting anyone, it's not the case that I was using any word as an insult, "ironically" or otherwise.

2. I wouldn't use the word "fag" as an insult, and I don't use it in any context, ever. The word I actually used, by putting it in the mouth of a hypothetical person of whose behaviour I was disapproving is an actual word used by actual stupid people in the wilds of the internet to denote newcomers to message boards upon whom they feel entitled to pick. I felt I was basically quoting a hypothetical person, so to me it seemed like an edge-case where using such a word is acceptable, because I was very obviously expressing the opposite of my actual feelings toward anyone at whom the word itself is directed; in fact, I was defending myself as a person in the category of people at whom that word (the word I actually used, not the other one) is directed, on the internet, namely a newcomer upon whom some self-styled Message Board Eminence Grise feels entitled to pick.

That argument is weak in a number of ways, though, and the part of me that hesitated before typing that should have prevailed, so I apologize for using that word.
posted by kengraham at 11:08 AM on October 7, 2012

@Rhomboid:

whaddaya mean "But just look at how much that god awful @username twitter bullshit has infiltrated the site"? That's godawful @username *irc* bullshit what has infiltrated the site.
posted by MartinWisse at 11:19 AM on October 7, 2012

I'm so making an @username sock puppet.
posted by arcticseal at 11:31 AM on October 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

@username isn't an IRC thing, it's an IRC ops thing.
posted by cortex (staff) at 11:35 AM on October 7, 2012

*zarq slaps cortex with a wet trout*
posted by zarq at 12:49 PM on October 7, 2012 [2 favorites]

Putting @ in front of a username to indicate that they're an OP is not an "irc thing". It just happens to be the default of whatever client you're using, but it's in no way an inherent part of the protocol. There are plenty of IRC clients that indicate by using a different color or some other adornment, and you can configure that behavior in most clients. Whereas with twitter, it is part of the fundamental protocol, because that's how the system recognizes who you're addressing your tweet to. And it applies to every user, not just special cases. I don't think twitter was borrowing from IRC at all when they invented that syntax, they were borrowing from common established practice in forums where people write comments that address other users with "@username, (rest of comment)".
posted by Rhomboid at 1:11 PM on October 7, 2012

I just look at it as a meta filter. If you start your comment with @username it can safely be ignored and skipped.
posted by Justinian at 1:36 PM on October 7, 2012 [3 favorites]

So THAT'S what "ETA" means. I've seen it a lot but just never knew what it meant.
posted by kavasa at 1:53 PM on October 7, 2012

I just look at it as a meta filter. If you start your comment with @username it can safely be ignored and skipped.

This is so true it should immediately end the practice, but alas it will not.
posted by winna at 2:07 PM on October 7, 2012

I've been ETAing for years on many fora, as have fellow users.

NEW AND IMPROVED Metafilter: It looks like you're trying to edit in a clever re-post
posted by tilde at 3:19 PM on October 7, 2012

Putting @ in front of a username to indicate that they're an OP is not an "irc thing". It just happens to be the default of whatever client you're using, but it's in no way an inherent part of the protocol.

This is 100% backwards. Go read RFC 1459 (i.e. the RFC for IRC). It says, and I quote:

A channel operator is identified by the '@' symbol next to their nickname whenever it is associated with a channel (ie replies to the NAMES, WHO and WHOIS commands).

The usage of @ for channel operators is inherent to the protocol. It just so happens that some IRC clients choose to strip that off and instead substitute color coding or some other convention to identify operators.
posted by tocts at 6:10 PM on October 7, 2012

ops plz
posted by nathancaswell at 7:52 PM on October 7, 2012 [1 favorite]

oops plz edit
posted by subbes at 6:29 AM on October 8, 2012

"Edited to add" is the new "On (non-)preview." Get used to it, or get rid of the edit window.

If it's against the rules to use the edit window to "edit to add", well, don't give us an edit window, because that's what they're used for everywhere else. And if it's especially against the rules to do it with full disclosure, well, yuck.

It's only common in other places because software does it for them.

As many have said upthread, this is just not true. It happens because people are occasionally honest. Punishing honesty is fucked up. Don't.
posted by Sys Rq at 10:26 AM on October 8, 2012

Punishing honesty is fucked up.

We're not punishing honesty, we're asking people to adapt their use of something a little. Doing a little ETA thing is something we'd rather people not do, and we'll continue to gently nudge folks as necessary until that gets baked into expectations around here more thoroughly, but it's not the class of misuse we're looking at with the "don't fuck around with this feature or you'll get banned" thing.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:30 AM on October 8, 2012

But if people don't cop to it, how do you catch them?
posted by Sys Rq at 10:31 AM on October 8, 2012

We can see all the edits on the back end. We can drop people a line in private if we see them repeatedly doing that. When it happens in public right after the launch, addressing it gently in public has the extra effect of noting and modeling the desired vs. undesired use where people will see it, for a little bit of extra reinforcement of the idea.
posted by cortex (staff) at 10:43 AM on October 8, 2012

Comment I'm making just to look at the edit rules as well..

Haha!
posted by mathiu at 9:19 AM on October 9, 2012