PaulStoffregen
Well-known member
I believe the limit is 2 hours.
For years we had no limit, but really should have. Yeah, a time limit for editing means you can't use a post like an editable static page. But how valuable that really is for a forum is questionable, since people who've already seen the message probably won't notice the changes.
There are 2 problems the time limit solves.
1: Spammers have a tactic where they post legitimate-looking questions, then days or weeks later edit them to spam. They often do this on messages meant to boost search results for other sites with links, where their goal is never to be read by real humans but for their message to be seen by the search engine spiders.
2: Some real people would go back and massively edit or delete their messages. In some cases they do this when their problem was solved. In a few cases, they'd get frustrated with the forum or some particular person, or just with the fact their project didn't work. The problem with such editing is this makes the message history really hard to follow for anyone else who later finds the thread by searching. There's a lot of valuable answers buried on this forum for search, and preserving the message history is a goal.
For years we had no limit, but really should have. Yeah, a time limit for editing means you can't use a post like an editable static page. But how valuable that really is for a forum is questionable, since people who've already seen the message probably won't notice the changes.
There are 2 problems the time limit solves.
1: Spammers have a tactic where they post legitimate-looking questions, then days or weeks later edit them to spam. They often do this on messages meant to boost search results for other sites with links, where their goal is never to be read by real humans but for their message to be seen by the search engine spiders.
2: Some real people would go back and massively edit or delete their messages. In some cases they do this when their problem was solved. In a few cases, they'd get frustrated with the forum or some particular person, or just with the fact their project didn't work. The problem with such editing is this makes the message history really hard to follow for anyone else who later finds the thread by searching. There's a lot of valuable answers buried on this forum for search, and preserving the message history is a goal.