Question 2: Should the Forum:

a) provide users the ability to edit and/or delete their own comments (and replies) during the open period; (or)

b) be configured such that once any comment or reply is submitted, it becomes permanent and cannot be edited or removed -- even by the original poster?

Background: 

If any Forum user can Edit or Delete a previous reply, it is possible that, in a threaded discussion, the referent to a series of comments could be lost permanently. If, for example, the starting comment, upon which many responses are based, is removed or edited out (to a single character), then it may be impossible for those following the discussion to make sense of the thread. Furthermore, Staff may find itself unable to report on the threaded discussion if key elements are missing. 

One question that may arise is: if Edit permission were disallowed, how would a poster correct an inadvertent mistake? In Confluence, for example, one answer would be to use the Reply Comment function immediately below the entry amending any errors, for example:

In the above post, I meant to write third quarter, not second.

If something more serious were to occur that could not be easily remedied with the Reply Comment capability, the user could send an email to the Forum Administrator who would have the ability to assist with other unforeseen issues.

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4 Comments

  1. Jonathan Zuck

    Not necessary

  2. Frederic Guillemaut

    In theory, you should be able to edit, but as said, you might  loose the conversation.

    So no editing.

    Or if it is possible, editing in a crossed out way, but that might imply some developpement.

  3. Sokol Haxhiu

    I am of opinion that once comments are written they can not be changed.  I agree that if the comments is changed that it might mess up the entire logic of discussion and reference.

    The user has always the option of writting another comment in corrected form. I don't know if the technology allows it, but I was thinking that in case a user submits a corrected version of a previous comment, then the previous comments can change to a different colur or the font style can change, in this way everybody will know when there is a comment that is changed or not valid.

  4. Don Blumenthal

    A typical lawyer reply: it depends.

    1. No reply comments or static period followed by reply period - Yes. Someone might have subsequent thoughts based on outside factors or another post to a question.

    2. Dynamic reply system - No inline corrections because of the confusion issue. A reply might refer to something that has been deleted. However, the reply to self idea that Ken mentioned in the Background could allow for quasi-edits without losing references.