# Posting Guidelines - comments?



## Joe Blow (14 June 2005)

Hi everyone,

I have come up with some posting guidelines and I would like some feedback about how you feel about them and perhaps make suggstions about things I may have overlooked.

They are primarily for newcomers who are generally not familiar with how things work at Aussie Stock Forums:



> Posting Guidelines
> 
> 1. Before starting a new thread on a particular stock or topic, please use the search feature to see if there is an active thread on the same stock or topic. This will help prevent unneccesary duplicate threads and will make Aussie Stock Forums a more effective resource. Duplicate threads will be merged or deleted by moderators.
> 
> ...




Your feedback is both welcomed and appreciated.


----------



## GreatPig (14 June 2005)

Joe,

Why limit the time that posts can be edited for?

On Somersoft, which also uses vBulletin, for a period of time posts can be edited without any indication, after which an edit comment is automatically appended to the post when it's edited (with or without an author comment).

What's the point of having a time limit?

Cheers,
GP


----------



## Joe Blow (14 June 2005)

GreatPig said:
			
		

> Joe,
> 
> Why limit the time that posts can be edited for?
> 
> ...




GP,

I have posted on forums with time limits before and the benefit I see is that it prevents people from deleting things they posted and then, for example, denying they said them. I think if someone is prepared to make a post on a public forum then they should also be prepared to stand by their words. It makes people think twice about what they post... and rightly so.

Also, it gives posters the ability to completely erase posts much later down the track which can make threads hard to follow or even nonsensical as important elements of the thread may be missing.

Doing away with time limits on editing posts could open up a rather large can of worms in my opinion, especially as the forum grows.

I would, however, consider increasing the time limit to 30 minutes if people thought that would be better.


----------



## GreatPig (15 June 2005)

Joe,

Fair enough. Does make it a little inconvenient to fix mistakes later though.

Cheers,
GP


----------



## RichKid (15 June 2005)

GreatPig said:
			
		

> Joe,
> 
> Fair enough. Does make it a little inconvenient to fix mistakes later though.
> 
> ...




Just PM me or Joe and we'll fix most problems that need editing. Agree with Joe about people retrospectively editing stuff out, makes a mess of things. Eventhough I can amend my posts retrospectively as a moderator I don't except for minor things like spelling. It's important that debates for example don't get messed up by people 'going back in time' to change their position or to confuse the issues (this is rare but does and will happen). 

Many people forget how powerful the search tool is, especially beginners so I'm glad it's up there as rule number one.


----------



## wayneL (15 June 2005)

>>>>I would, however, consider increasing the time limit to 30 minutes if people thought that would be better.<<<<

I reckon that would be good Joe.

Cheers


----------



## Joe Blow (15 June 2005)

GreatPig said:
			
		

> Does make it a little inconvenient to fix mistakes later though.




I know what you mean GP. It does take some getting used to.

I've made thousands of posts on various forums over the years, most of them with time limits on editing, and I've developed a little two step technique that has served me well.

Before submitting a post, I read through it thoroughly and correct any obvious spelling or grammatical errors. Then straight after I post it, I read it through from the perspective of someone who has just come across it for the first time. Then I just make any final alterations if I feel any are necessary.

As RichKid suggested, if you do need something changed after the fact send either of us a PM and we'll make sure it gets fixed.


----------



## Dan_ (15 June 2005)

another quick suggestion, type your post in word and copy/paste into the forums...or type in the forums copy/paste into word, check spelling and such and copy past back into the forum.


----------



## GreatPig (15 June 2005)

Joe,



			
				Joe Blow said:
			
		

> I've made thousands of posts on various forums over the years, most of them with time limits on editing



I'm most familiar with the CompuServe forums, and up until the new Web format recently, they never allowed editing at all. However, they did allow anyone to delete any message they'd posted indefinitely (although that was a configurable option that a few forums disabled, but most left on). On those forums though, there was limited message space and old messages eventually scrolled off the board anyway.

On their current Web system, editing and deleting is allowed up until the post has been read by the addressee (as messages are to a particular person, not just the forum as a whole). After that neither are allowed. And almost nobody likes it. Many people now are very guarded about what they post, knowing that their messages will never disappear and that they can't delete them themselves. And in one forum frequented by writers, in the old days people would freely post snippets from their work-in-progress, knowing that their message would soon disappear and that the forum was not Web-searchable. Now that almost never happens, as they're concerned about their intellectual property rights and the messages being regarded as prior publication.

Having watched the transition on a few of those forums, I think the level of participation, other than the irrelevant banter, has dropped significantly.

However, as with most issues, there are conflicting goals. I guess in this forum no-one's likely to be worried about intellectual property rights and the like, so perhaps it is better to try and maintain coherency of the threads.

Cheers,
GP


----------

