Editable Comments

in pipedot on 2014-09-28 02:11 (#2SZP)

Eagle eyed viewers may have noticed a new "Edit" button next to their comments. Yes, you can now fix a broken link, correct a typo, or add additional information to your comments.

Things to note:

Any positive moderation points will be removed. Negative moderation points will remain to prevent trolls from reseting the comment's score by simply editing their comment.
The "Edit Time" of the comment will change. This will allow visitors to see it as a new comment (and turn it blue.)
The full history of the modifications can be seen by clicking on the comment link. The diff is colored with green (additions) and red (deletions) backgrounds to help highlight the changes.

Example edited comment below.

6 comments

Example (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org on 2014-09-28 02:03 (#2SZQ)

New text:

There is a time in every man's education when he arrives at the conviction that envy is ignorance; that imitation is suicide; that he must take himself for better, for worse, as his portion; that though the wide universe is full of good, no kernel of nourishing corn can come to him but through his toil bestowed on that plot of ground which is given to him to till. The power which resides in him is new in nature, and none but he knows what that is which he can do, nor does he know until he has tried.

Ralph Waldo Emerson - Self Reliance
Another line, added for good measure.

Re: Example (Score: 0)

by Anonymous Coward on 2014-10-10 07:17 (#2T70)

Any chance of keeping a history of edits?

Re: Example (Score: 1)

by bryan@pipedot.org on 2014-10-10 20:06 (#2T7D)

There is a history of edits. And a system to easily spot the differences between the edits using highlighted red/green "diff" text.

Re: Example (Score: 1)

by kerrany@pipedot.org on 2014-10-23 20:50 (#2TND)

Would it be possible to make edits visible all the time? Maybe a setting one could flip on and off? Or is it too computationally expensive?

A nice feature... (Score: 2, Interesting)

by evilviper@pipedot.org on 2014-09-28 06:32 (#2SZS)

I actually like it... I always notice something wrong RIGHT AFTER submitting, even if I was trying to be careful, previewed my comment 20 times, and even if I'm not trying to check it after submitting. Still, I always manage to see something wrong 2 seconds later. So it's quite nice to be able to fix that. But it was a little frustrating learning how it worked the hard way... "Wasn't my comment +3 before? What happened? Did somebody do something? Why did it say 2 New comments when I already read everything here?" etc.

On the down-side, I can see people trying to be clever and continuing to update their original comment in response to every reply, instead of replying in-kind. Or even messing up discussions by completely changing their comments, making the thread below theirs completely change in meaning, and possibly becoming impossible to understand.

Example thread:

|- I hate black people. (-1 Troll)
|-- You're a racist! (+5 Insightful)
|-- Why would you say that? (+5 Informative)

Edited thread becomes:

|- I believe in equal rights. (-1 Troll)
|-- You're a racist! (+5 Insightful)
|-- Why would you say that? (+5 Informative)

I guess liberal use of blockquotes will help with that, but it might become a problem.

Re: A nice feature... (Score: 1)

by wootery@pipedot.org on 2014-10-19 21:42 (#2TG2)

Good point. Can't see any obvious remedy to the ability to throw off a thread... Making available the edit-history of a comment should help somewhat though.

Maybe a -1 edit abuse would help?