Implemented Post Edit History

[Erik]

This may have been posted already (I can't believe it hasn't), but I tried searching and I couldn't find anything, so here goes...

Currently, if you edit a post, there's no indication that the post was edited. I thought it just updated the post date/time, but I just tested it and it doesn't appear to do anything at all (post date/time stays as original).

It would be really nice if there was a "edited by [name] x minutes ago..." in addition to the original posting date, à la vBulletin and others.

I feel that this is a crucial feature to avoid confusing or malicious/nefarious edits.

 

[Nix]

I have to agree post edit history is a must - pretty please

 

[DSF]

I do support this.

 

[CyberAP]

This tweak will make your database look ugly 

 

[Dean]

This tweak will make your database look ugly

And without it, it will make my forum look ugly because people change their posts, and behavior issues arise. For instance I could type something bad about you in this post, then an hour later change it. If you did not quote me in your response to me, there would be no indication what I had typed.

Locking posts to not allow edits would not work for us, at all.

 

[CyberAP]

And without it, it will make my forum look ugly because people change their posts, and behavior issues arise. For instance I could type something bad about you in this post, then an hour later change it. If you did not quote me in your response to me, there would be no indication what I had typed.
 
Locking posts to not allow edits would not work for us, at all.

I know that there is a tweak for vB where you can set a timer for post to enable editing. For example 2 hours. After that time only moderator or administrator can edit or delete it.

Just imagine a large post that user edited 500 times to spam your database. And then imagine 10 users doing that. You will have a very little uptime  

 

[Carlos]

[slightly off topic] I love the edit button in the PM's. They are nifty! A very much needed feature of PM's (now PC's).

 

[Onimua]

This tweak will make your database look ugly

I really don't see how it would look "ugly."

 

[CyberAP]

I really don't see how it would look "ugly."

Again:

Just imagine a large post that user edited 500 times to spam your database. And then imagine 10 users doing that. You will have a very little uptime

 

[Onimua]

Ah I missed that.

Would it be so bad if you limited the amount of revisions kept? Or let them expire after a certain amount of time?

 

[DSF]

I think a time limit is the minimum request.

 

[CyberAP]

Revisions are good when you have a very high-load configuration and revision system is done well (to write only changes, ex. MediaWiki) or when only certain people can create posts (blog). But when a lot of people can create messages and all of their changes are recorded every time they write something it slows down your forum a lot.

 

[Darfuria]

Would there be a more innovative way of doing this, besides storing each revision in a separate row of a table when only a couple of characters/words have been changed?

 

[anotheralias]

Would there be a more innovative way of doing this, besides storing each revision in a separate row of a table when only a couple of characters/words have been changed?

How about just taking away the ability to edit posts from people who abuse the system?

 

[CyberAP]

How about just taking away the ability to edit posts from people who abuse the system?

And how do you guess?

 

[anotheralias]

And how do you guess?

By whoever's *****ing that somebody else changed their post from a nasty comment to a nice one. Put them both in a no-editing usergroup for awhile. (Why slow down the whole board and punish everyone else because a handful of people are abusing the edit system?)

And really, if someone wants to get around it, they can always link to an image and then reupload the image once the person sees it. I've seen that trick in action on another board.

 

[Darfuria]

By whoever's *****ing that somebody else changed their post from a nasty comment to a nice one. Put them both in a no-editing usergroup for awhile. (Why slow down the whole board and punish everyone else because a handful of people are abusing the edit system?)

Cunning!

 

[Enigma]

Just imagine a large post that user edited 500 times to spam your database. And then imagine 10 users doing that. You will have a very little uptime

Wrong. Wikipedia stores every revision of every article indefinitely. For people in cheap shared hosting situations, you could have a feature to prune old post edit histories when they are no longer needed though.

 

[anotheralias]

Cunning!

A little sarcasm there, Darfuria?

If this is one of those things that can be turned off, then fine. But I'm not willing to pay a lot more for disk space just because a couple of board members are having a spitting match or something. And anyway, they can still use the image trick. If they think of it.

 

[Onimua]

A little sarcasm there, Darfuria?

If this is one of those things that can be turned off, then fine. But I'm not willing to pay a lot more for disk space just because a couple of board members are having a spitting match or something. And anyway, they can still use the image trick. If they think of it.

How much of a fight are you expecting that would dramatically increase the size of your database through revision history? It's not like posts themselves take up a lot of room.

 

[anotheralias]

How much of a fight are you expecting that would dramatically increase the size of your database through revision history? It's not like posts themselves take up a lot of room.

I'm not expecting a fight to take up disk space, I'm expecting that logging every change made in every single post would eat up disk space. But I'm not a programmer or a coder, so if that's just my own ignorance and it doesn't actually, then fine.