Better forum

[Nick Sabalausky]

On Wed, 5 Dec 2012 18:40:10 -0800
"H. S. Teoh" <hsteoh at quickfur.ath.cx> wrote:

> On Thu, Dec 06, 2012 at 03:08:16AM +0100, anonymous wrote:
> > On Thursday, 6 December 2012 at 01:41:55 UTC, js.mdnq wrote:
> [...]
> > >What I do know is that editing will never be available with nntp
> > >and that is a severe restriction... in 2051 there will be no way
> > >to edit/delete posts here and fix mistakes. That tells you a lot
> > >about how dead the nntp protocol is. Sure there is a chance....
> > >but about the same as a chance in hell... which, I think, is sorta
> > >like winning the lotto.
> > 
> > Editing is an anti-feature. I think it's nice that mistakes are
> > preserved. This is a forum for discussion, mistakes are expected,
> > and editing can make it difficult to follow.
> 
> +1. Editing encourages sloppy posting. Which is OK for casual
> discussions, but not for technical discussions like we have here. It
> also messes up history, because I can reply to something that's later
> changed or deleted, then whoever browses the archives won't be able to
> make head or tail of the discussion.
> 

There is such a thing as limited editing. Ex: Allow edits for maybe
5-10 minutes after initial posting, or until someone replies, whichever
comes first. That sort of thing works out fine, and I'd actually quite
like to have it.

However, our current approach of amending a post via a follow-up reply
is still something I find perfectly acceptable.

I do think what's needed though is an updated equivalent to NNTP, so
that NNTP's few limitations can be overcome without forcing the
abomination of web "apps" on everyone. Unfortunately that'll probably
never happen, except possibly as some goofy REST API.