litphoria

Deleting the post would get partway there, but isn't nearly as good as just being able to edit. In part because I can't access the original markdown version of this post, so if it doesn't work out I'm screwed.

Here's my suggestions for handling those problems:

Displaying the edit field: Add a text box beneath the name and timestamp, above the post text. Turn the post text into a preview of what you're typing, with a title. Here's a mockup. I don't like the positioning of that save button in relation to other stuff (so here's a second mockup without it) but I am tinkering with F12 tools here and need to sleep soon. (Also my post is getting a weird formatting bug with this second link.)

People will figure it out.

Storing it on the server: Take a look at the Stack Exchange Data Explorer, in which the team has openly displayed a decent chunk of their database schema from regular public data dumps. (Naturally, not the entire database gets dumped, or exposed via the data explorer, 'cause that would be dumb for security and other reasons.) Particularly, note the Posts and PostHistory tables. I think what they do is this:

• The Posts table contains mostly all information related to a post, including its current text. The original markdown of the post is stored; it's only converted to HTML when it's finally being displayed to the viewer.
• There's also a PostHistory table, which stores past revisions of the post, but not the current one. Same again, raw markdown version stored.
• Whenever a post gets edited, the the post in Posts is updated to the new version. The old version is dumped into the PostHistory table, along with:
  • The time that revision was originally made (e.g. when it was first posted, if you're editing it for the very first time).
  • A reference to the ID of the post that got edited.
  • Whatever else you want, like who did the edit.
• If you want to see the history of a post, the system pulls the current version from the Posts table, and each old version from the PostHistory table, and displays them in chronological order, newest first.
  • Their system also pulls data from other tables on various events, like when the post was closed or reopened, when bounties were placed or awarded, when the post was locked or unlocked or a notice added, etc.

Intuitive on the UI: People on Stack Exchange with various degrees of technical aptitude have figured it out; people have figured out how to post in the first place and the post previews above, they can probably figure out this too.

How to deal with moderation: I'm not sure what the issue is with figuring out moderation, maybe you have stuff in mind I don't. But this is pretty simple in my mind: if someone's exploiting this to be a jerk, handle accordingly per handling jerks.

Well it goes past just the posts for new plays. If you can edit roleplay post you can also edit live-updating posts, and editing posts in a live environment is kind of frisky to me. What if you're typing something and then the very thing you're responding to is edited without you noticing it?

If it has to be deleted, then you can get a pretty clear visual indication that this post is no longer valid and to wait for a new one to come in. If it can be edited at whim for the next five minutes you'd have to wait five minutes until they're done before you even start or constantly watch it for changes.

In a live environment, which might be focused around smaller posts, lower the edit timeframe. (Heck, the entire thing will disappear off the screen shortly and vanish forever anyway.)

Include a distinct marker that the post has been edited. In SE Chat, this is a pencil icon at the very beginning of the message: screenshot with the actual text edited away 'cause it's not important. People can click that icon to open a little menu containing a link to the history of that message.

Speaking as someone who uses these rooms regularly: I don't wait five minutes to reply. Nobody does. Most people don't edit their messages except to correct mistakes, which is inconsequential to replying. Very few opt to change the meaning of a post, not even the trolls trying to annoy people, because it's really hard to miss the post changing and a pencil mark appearing. Those around you are unlikely to fall for it and think you're really agreeing with that person who just edited their post to support Nazism, and if they do, you can go "hey, they edited it."

The utility is high, abuse very low. Try it at least to see how it'll work out here. Trial it in live environments, disable it there or hamper it if you need to. Provide editing in environments like this one and non-live environments though.

Also re: that screenshot, that is two messages. (Sequential messages from the same user get grouped together.) The second message is the one with the edit mark; in a multiline message it would show at the top. The pencil mark is hard to miss since it fills an otherwise vacant spot with significant positioning (i.e. you will see that spot, and you will see if there's something actually in it for one message), but the pencil mark is not distracting, which is an important balance to strike.

I strongly disapprove of deleting OOC stuff to "clean it up". That's what the OOC&IC filter is for. Plus, deleting would not just make the post go away entirely, it would leave a small gap saying you had posted something but chose to retract it at a later date. You'd just be adding a bunch of noise doing that.

As for editing only "forums", the site uses the same systems for both. Disallowing editing of normal chat but for forums would be an arbitrary limitation that at least the roleplay owner could get around just by switching the roleplay to the "forum" mode and editing their posts, then switching it back.

I don't know how I'd feel about an "edit mode". That seems like it is achieving something outside of what Velus is suggesting here, though is at least less problematic from a moderation standpoint.

Then I'll have to coordinate with my partners on f-list and skype and not use the OOC option here if I can't remove them.

You may be interested in this. Whatever you're trying to do, losing all context for why you wrote a post and all dice rolls and everything else like that seems quite strong, to say the least. Keep in mind that it is as much your personal log of events as it is something others can look at. There is likely a better solution here for your problem here that doesn't involve neither deleting nor editing.

I'm still not sure about editing posts in general though. It just seems too easy to abuse and quite a lot stored on the server (an entire wiki for each post, really?) just so you can make a post without spell-checking it or something.

On the other hand, allowing a single edit within a short period of time and possibly a free-edit when a roleplay is in the finished mode (and not able to be posted to) may encourage people to present the best face for others to read and correct simple mistakes.

This suggestion is really not about being able to edit a whole roleplay, which is a whole different ballgame. Could you please move discussion on that to an actual proposal on that? It's reaching the point of derailing this one.

I do not believe we're aiming for the same outcome: I want limited editing of a post I made just a few minutes ago; you're aiming for an entire roleplay edit feature. These are two fundamentally different features - even if one might somehow provide for the other. Discussion of the latter is not discussion of the former, and should not be distracting the point here. I'm happy for you to make this suggestion and discuss it, but this is NOT the place for it!

I adore the idea of being able to correct typos after posting. And it goes beyond typos to mistakes of comprehension, like not reading that someone had a helm on, and posting your RP that ignores the helm and creates a discontinuity. But WA's solution of deletion and re-posting works great for posts with Markdown if there is a button for "Copy Markdown", or "Show Markdown" (so that Control-V works on the markdown), so timed editing isn't any faster or better than WA's solution. Plus "Show Markdown" on any post would let all users copy some markdown from an earlier post for easier recreation in a later post. Hmm, should I just turn that into a suggestion?

Why bother with time-frame? Some things are hard to spot and you need to change them anyway, it feels like trying to hard to be super-safe about potential 'troll' and 'abuse' which is bad way to think about it. You don't limit useful features for normal users because somebody might abuse them. You implement something to be as useful for normal user as it is possible and supported by philosophy of the site, and then you just make sure to give tools to weed out the abusers. Reporting, ignoring, that kind of thing.

Global - editing after the roleplay would work somewhat, but it is for fixing things that are glaringly obvious (like me accidentally posting OOC as IC), but great many of small things will get forgotten by that point - it hits and weakens how good the RP looks like, because you won't fix those.

If you want to keep potential 'abuse' and disorientation away, I think this would be the best way - make editing possible all the time, no time-frames and such. When player hits edit button, you create carbon copy of the post in the system, he edits it and then hits 'Commit' (or something like that) button. If the change was more than some arbitrary % of characters in the post, instead of replacing old with new, the edited version is attached as collapsible and other people in RP have to review it (changes indicated somehow to make it easier) and they can either Accept or Reject the changes.
This way, time-frame for editing doesn't matter because any kind of change with actual impact needs to be reviewed by other people in the roleplay - which means moderation by involved people, troll control and opportunity for discussion, even - while it doesn't make the feature unnecessarily constrained just because somebody 'might' abuse it

My take is similar to Roel's. Any time-limit that is adequate is also enough to permit abuses, so why bother with time-limits per se. If things go astray, then the invitee still should have some rights. They might be able to lock the RP in some way, freeze it at some point to prevent further edits, and so on. I mean, should the participants not have a say in whether this is publicly posted, and if so, then they would simply never permit it to be viewed publically, so post-editing-misconduct would not be visible to anyone in that case.

This suggestion got way off track into all sorts of possible alternate ways to implement an editing system. Here's the thing: all I want here is the ability to edit a post after sending it.

I suggest that for a solid level of accountability, all we need is a post history feature, and a visible indicator a post's been edited. Nothing extra is really necessary in addition to that.

Lots of talk has been about the possible abuse of this feature to have people on. One thing I want to point out is abuse is going to be by like 1% of the users, 1% of the time. If we're going to create a restriction here, it's probably going to come at a cost of inconveniencing 99% of the people 99% of the time. It had better be worth that cost. I would also point out that in general, people will notice if someone's being a dick.

There's some stuff that's been brought up elsewhere that doesn't substitute for this, or sounds like it's overcomplicating this with stuff that it doesn't need. I'd like to respond to that stuff:

• The ability to edit right at the end isn't very relevant to me or people in my situation. I don't care about the end state: I don't roleplay publicly, I haven't for years, I don't roleplay for the public or for showing off to anyone. What I care about is roleplaying for my partner and myself, and ensuring we're having fun in the moment. Now, when I do have a public roleplay I might show off, editing at the end would be useful, but it's not related to also being able to edit whilst the roleplay is already happening.
• The ability to only edit a post once. Works unless there's a second error we didn't notice (which probably happens regularly for all of us), or you introduce a second error without noticing (also regularly, maybe less regularly).
• Preventing you from editing once someone else has posted. This will get in the way a lot, even if that's a "once an IC post has been made" thing. This is one of those things where the cost isn't worth the gain.
• A "wiki system", as WA mentioned in this feature. We just need a revision history for accountability, and that's it. This is helpful because it's not a restriction, and comes at no inconvenience or cost, yet helps us confirm 100% whether someone's being abusive of this feature in those rare cases.
  • A sort of diff feature to let us see what changed could be helpful, but is a nice-to-have that should be implemented later. It's not needed and shouldn't tie up an edit.
  • This feature just involves dumping old copies in a database table with a low-complexity structure, and a page to look those up. Dare I dive into implementation speculation, but: it's not a difficult or extremely complicated change, although it may not be a trivial feature to implement (but it's not like many are).
• Other people having to review and approve the post. Good in theory, but creates hassle for you and everyone else. Not worth it. Not necessary with an revision history.

If this should not impact chat (as WA also mentioned in the edit-at-the-end feature), this can be disabled in chat. We already have a few small behaviour and interface differences between posts and chat. (Then again, I'm not sure why this needs to be disabled in chat. See above, people being able to notice if someone's being a dick.)

So, that's that. I'm only making a simple request. Please let's keep this simple. Please let's also not be so concerned about bad folks that we don't implement a super helpful feature altogether. That's a "this is why we can't have nice things," except we're doing it to ourselves at a major cost.

I've also edited the suggestion itself to cut it down to the essence of this suggestion.

I also want to point out that a goodly portion of the responses in here were covering the edit-at-the-end feature, which as stated doesn't achieve this feedback's aims.

There's definitely going to be features that are going to be useful to have. In chat, Roel brought up the possibility of highlighting where a post got changed (possibly in the post itself, whether it has to be activated or not) to help reorient people when something changes. Group approval for significant changes could be good. Ways to deal with whoever might take advantage of this feature with ill intent would also be good, whatever shape taking advantage of it takes. A lot of those are good things to have, but also are not necessary for having the beginnings of a solid editing system - and once we have a solid editing system we can even better identify what extra stuff we need from it. I welcome ways we can expand on this. I also want to emphasize that the feature's simple at its core and doesn't necessarily take all that much, though it may lead to more.

The feedback I've heard from most people is they want to edit posts to:

1. want to correct typos or incorrectness in their posts after they make it
2. want to revise and clean up their posts before they make it public for others to see and peer at

To achieve these use-cases, a one-time edit to correct 1 and a "review" or "finalize" state before "finished" where you can freely edit will cover 2.

What I've not heard people need is free editing with a revision system to view all of the previous edits they made. This is why you run into YAGNI --- you aren't going to need it --- from me. From what I've heard people saying they would use editing for, we can get 90% of it covered with 20% of the effort of this particular suggestion. And on a site with only one dev making everything, only doing what people will actually use is the most efficient way to get these features out.

After talking with several people about all the angles (including WA and Velus) I think the full extent of what we would realistically need is:

• Ability to delete a post (you can accidentally send two because of network workings etc etc - it is needed at times)
• One-time edit while play goes on (for those glaring mistakes that just can't be let to stay for too long or any unexpected situations that caused major fuck ups)
• The free-editing option in 'Editorial' mode just before RP is closed

There were several points brought up why and how things should work and here are my thoughts:

• We need to take into account WA's time and database capacity; too complicated solutions should be avoided and too much cluttering data as well - which directly connects to how WA stated that there is a need to store every edit for moderation purposes. Thus, both wiki system and free editing just because is out of the waters. Why would free-editing after the play work in this situation? Well, you would just care more about making posts properly, to make RP look well all the time, so less mistakes left for the ending stage.
• As much as I understand that people who play privately want their RP to look nice - I don't see how you would make as many mistakes as to need unlimited edition options. There is spell-check, ability to add original names to said spell-check, you can wait until something is pointed out to you and you will probably read the post before sending. If anything stays, it will be very, very minor
• Abuse cases - they were brought up repeatedly and what I wrote above as good packet of editing is fully not dependant on any conception of them - there are no safety valves but at the same time all is stored. In future mods and admins will probably be using some sort of panel that will make swapping versions and thus not make players lose un-trolled writing. And that is perfectly sufficient.
• Complexity - system as proposed above easy; only thing you have to remember is the limit on edits before play ends, but those can easily be indicated. It is a major gain when compared to, for example, my idea
• Edit indication - Both indicator saying that post was edited and option to show how it looked before are possible for this

Overall - I think this is the best and easiest compromise we are going to achieve. I would rather have us focus on locking this version (as there are no objections f technical and administrative nature from WA as far as I talked with him) and endorsing it, because we need it. If in the future need for discussing other things will arise - we can have the discussion, especially since technical and staff details might change. Right now, we need basis for the feature, and I am pretty sure this is giving us all enough comfort to keep going.

And I will stress it - it is a compromise, we are not getting all we could possibly want, but we are getting as much of what we want as is feasible right now. Revisiting the feature might come, but when it can be afforded, in work-time, database space and so on.

I support the idea carried in Roel's comment!

IF there is no free-editing allowed, then time-limits on editing a post start to make some sense, but a timed editing period can still be abused a little anyway.

Perhaps the simplest fix overall --short-term, at least-- might be to let each participant in a private RP have a vote for making public, and the vote must be unanimous. Then to enable editing, the RP must be made private. Private RPs would be allowed to be freely-edited without limit. In any case, I know I would want private RPs I am in to be kept private, more often than not.

BTW, there are plenty of grammar mistakes that people don't see until it is point out to them by someone else, so there is always a need for editing.

I don't know how vote about private is mixed in this? So far WA's responses were clear that free editing would be only at the end - it is all about database space.

I think you're being dense on purpose, Roel. It's already been mentioned above. Clearly, if an RP can only be edited in private, and it can't be made public without full agreement, then that is an extremely light-weight way to handle it because there is no space-impact on the DB. No wiki-style tracking of changes is required, because if everyone doesn't agree to the changes, it won't be made public.

To address your three points, deleting should only be available for the last post in the series. To delete up to a certain point, all participants would have to delete their own posts up to the desired point, one after the other. You don't want a swiss-cheese RP from random deletes, or mistaken deletes. Otherwise you would need full-editing AND post-insertion to fix that problem. But I've agreed previously, above, that last-post deletion & creation of a new post is a way to "edit" the last post, and is light on WA and the DB, as versioning and post-editing, and timed-edits are all not required for just that feature.

A one-time edit is light on implementation and the DB if it doesn't include version tracking. But whatever negatives we don't like, such as anti-social behavior, can occur in one edit just as easily as unlimited editing. Plus if you edit your post to correct spelling, then notice something more subtle, you can't edit it right then when you see it. And again, after you do fix your post, then suppose your partner fixes a bad leading participle phrase in their post and the result is it now disagrees with your subsequent post. Oops, you've both edited once, so no more changes allowed.

What kind of 'free' editing? Or how free? The RP creator gets to edit all posts? Each person, if they care, may edit their own posts? Again, if you can't trust people with more than a single edit while the RP is in progress, what is the logic of permitting it afterwards-only? Is the change to "Editorial" mode a final step that can't be reversed, or can the RP be freely advanced to this mode, and then set back to In Progress? I'm really just not getting the reasoning for trying to do it different than a straight forum where there is no versioning, and the hole thread is freely-editable, until maybe it gets thread-locked.

I think you're being dense on purpose, Roel. It's already been mentioned above. Clearly, if an RP can only be edited in private, and it can't be made public without full agreement, then that is an extremely light-weight way to handle it because there is no space-impact on the DB. No wiki-style tracking of changes is required, because if everyone doesn't agree to the changes, it won't be made public.

Thank you for assuming stuff against me - WA already mentioned he has to have all of them saved no matter if private or not, for moderation purposes. There is still chance of rule violations - if it was only about whether stuff goes to broader public or not, it wouldn't be an issue. But it is not.

To address your three points, deleting should only be available for the last post in the series. To delete up to a certain point, all participants would have to delete their own posts up to the desired point, one after the other. You don't want a swiss-cheese RP from random deletes, or mistaken deletes. Otherwise you would need full-editing AND post-insertion to fix that problem. But I've agreed previously, above, that last-post deletion & creation of a new post is a way to "edit" the last post, and is light on WA and the DB, as versioning and post-editing, and timed-edits are all not required for just that feature.

Mhm, yes, I haven't said anything about limit to what you can delete, but I fully agree that deletions being restricted to last thing posted are more than reasonable. At least out of 'Editorial' (because some things might need deleting while there too). Not sure, but I would suppose some storing even of deleted ones would be needed? Got to ask WA for that, but I guess it might not.

A one-time edit is light on implementation and the DB if it doesn't include version tracking. But whatever negatives we don't like, such as anti-social behavior, can occur in one edit just as easily as unlimited editing. Plus if you edit your post to correct spelling, then notice something more subtle, you can't edit it right then when you see it. And again, after you do fix your post, then suppose your partner fixes a bad leading participle phrase in their post and the result is it now disagrees with your subsequent post. Oops, you've both edited once, so no more changes allowed.

As said previously, edits have to be stored anyway, as WA said. Version tracking is lighter in this case just because it queries for 0-1 of edits only, not 0-whatever number.
It is not against anti-social behaviour and doesn't claim to be any better against it than unlimited. Thing is purely technical - as I mentioned, there are no things in such system that would be aimed against abuse.
I would argue that corner-case like this, based on not really communicating/asking is a bit... well, weak of an example? Especially since you should be able to delete the post then, to get a proper version online.

What kind of 'free' editing? Or how free? The RP creator gets to edit all posts? Each person, if they care, may edit their own posts? Again, if you can't trust people with more than a single edit while the RP is in progress, what is the logic of permitting it afterwards-only? Is the change to "Editorial" mode a final step that can't be reversed, or can the RP be freely advanced to this mode, and then set back to In Progress? I'm really just not getting the reasoning for trying to do it different than a straight forum where there is no versioning, and the hole thread is freely-editable, until maybe it gets thread-locked.

Free as in unlimited in number and, addressing what was said above, where posts could be deleted, possibly? (to clean OOC for example; maybe allowing to delete only OOC no matter the place?)
It is not about trust, once again. I am not sure what is exact reasoning of WA about why unlimited can occur here - question to him. I can only guess that maybe once it is concluded we don't expect any rule-breaking and can be more lenient on archiving.
No, Editorial should only be able to be progressed into Finished RP where nothing can be posted/edited anymore.

Keep in mind some of these are my guesses, I only know as much as I asked about.

To add an important thing I forgot about - nobody said that unlimited editing will never happen. It won't happen for now.
Once the site takes off and it can afford enough from donations to easily support good enough servers to ensure that it won't blow storage, it might be considered again. Technical limitations, so far WA puts his own cash to pay for these.

Seems like all this stupid complexity is tied up in storing edits like a wiki, which is my main point. Forums don't do that now. Why is it suddenly mandatory that it be done in RPs? Seems like a lot of hassle for such a corner case.

With the most recent update, you can now edit posts one time. The feedback post body doesn't specify the whole unlimited editing thing -- just the ability to edit posts period. And you can do that. I'm considering marking this as implemented and letting people who want the unlimited editing make a feedback just for that --- provided they have actually used the once-edit and found it deficient for whatever reason.