Notice for edited posts?

October 23, 2005 10:24 PM

This post already has a metatalk thread, but I have a different issue/request. For those of us that come in late to a post, it can be damn hard to tell what's been going on with editing (or whether there's been any), such that many comments don't make sense. Is there an * edited * tag or the like that could be applied consistently?
posted by wilful to Feature Requests at 10:24 PM (21 comments total)

Eventually, yes, I'll add some flags that things have been removed or edited.

On the other hand, it's not really vital is it? The post is better now with stuff moved inside and a bunch of snarky comments saying the post sucked were removed. I understand that earlier freakouts over the formatting don't make sense, but is it really necessary for everyone to keep up on how much something sucked earlier today?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 10:30 PM on October 23, 2005

Oh hell yeah, from the remaining comments I'm sure it was probably a dogs breakfast. But it took a bit of reading to work out what the hell had been going on. If I saw nice little EDITED tag at the start, I could work out that some shit had been taking place and there was a reason that much didn't make sense. The MeTa link provided by bugbread did clue me in though.

Hardly a crucial request, that is true.
posted by wilful at 10:37 PM on October 23, 2005

Well, I tend to find you judgment easy to live with, Matt, but bear in mind that the flags will always be more vital for others than they are for you. You have the ability to recraft the thread as you see fit, and you're always in the know when it happens. There are probably blind spots in that process (natural, understandable ones) that others need filled.
posted by scarabic at 11:09 PM on October 23, 2005

Suggestion third'ed.
posted by Civil_Disobedient at 11:59 PM on October 23, 2005

But if you can already tell if the thread/post has been edited, you don't really need a 'this has been edited' sign.
posted by dhruva at 12:14 AM on October 24, 2005

Maybe a single line giving the count of how many posts were deleted? That way you get an idea of how bad the pileup was. I gotta say that the "This message has been deleted by an administrator" posts strewn all over the imdb forums are a major annoyance, especially when they comprise an entire thread.
posted by kimota at 3:47 AM on October 24, 2005

I've seen little notes from Jess in askme that are very simple and unobtrusive... just something like [off-topic comments deleted], [formatting fixed] or [link fixed] is enough to clear up any confusion.
posted by taz at 4:20 AM on October 24, 2005

I agree with taz. A book doesn't need to be written for each edit, but jessamyn's style is both unobtrusive and helpful.
posted by Bugbread at 4:49 AM on October 24, 2005

Thirding the small, brief parethetical text option - the problem isn't so much the missing comments, it's the subsequent comments that refer to missing comments, and a little note fixes that for those of us who are dim enough to spend a lot of time scrolling up and down threads, scratching heads.
posted by jack_mo at 6:01 AM on October 24, 2005

"[off-topic comments deleted], [formatting fixed] or [link fixed]"

Jess's little "CENSORED" stamp with a little black tape over the eyes, nips, and groin areas.
posted by mischief at 6:23 AM on October 24, 2005

We've asked for this many times, and it's good to hear that something is now in the offing - hoping sooner rather than later now that Matt is on the job full-time. But it can't be stressed too strongly that it's a royal pain in the ass to read a thread with no warning or markup and gradually become more confused, only to finally realize there has been some silent deletion going on, and then to have to try to piece together what got deleted in order to understand the current version.

While I would still prefer a small unobtrusive per-comment marker (e.g. [DELETED]), even having wilful or kimota's suggestion at the top of the thread would take care of 80% of the problem.
posted by soyjoy at 7:18 AM on October 24, 2005

I can't of many beyond improvements that are truly "", but given that it's been for many many by many many, I think it's safe to say that it would at the very least be.
posted by Armitage Shanks at 7:41 AM on October 24, 2005

Could the editor's flag read something like "[klarck's off-topic comments deleted]"? It would help provide some context to subsequent undeleted comments that refer to the deleted comment. The attribution may also act as a disincentive. Or may not. I'm not sure.
posted by klarck at 8:27 AM on October 24, 2005

I agree with Armitage
posted by Catfry at 8:48 AM on October 24, 2005

As I said in the other thread, Matt's going to append a Talk page to each thread. For each edited and deleted comment, let there be a small note on the discussion page and a copy of the offending material on the Talk page.
posted by Gyan at 9:28 AM on October 24, 2005

I agree with WhambuLance, but I think MessIanic was totally out of line! Totally uncalled for! Not. Cool. At. All.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 9:51 AM on October 24, 2005

It's Raining Florence Henderson, you're reacting out-of-context to Whambulance and MessIanic's very appropriate responses to quonsar's scabrous comments, which had already been deleted by the time you saw those. Even I can't believe quonsar would go so far as to add 204 comments to one MeTa thread. That was wayyyyyy over the line and deserved deletion.
posted by soyjoy at 10:17 AM on October 24, 2005

Oh, come on, soyjoy! I know you're a MessIanic apologist from way back (sockpuppet much?), but even 205 comments from quonsar wouldn't warrant a Ruth Bader Ginsburg Goatse!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 10:29 AM on October 24, 2005

Well, OK, that's true. That's something I never want to see again. This week, anyway.
posted by soyjoy at 11:07 AM on October 24, 2005

Edited from the anals of history. For your protection.
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 11:14 AM on October 24, 2005

that's a keeper
posted by y2karl at 12:23 PM on October 24, 2005