think tank forum

here's my problem with edits:
right now i can watch ttf for new posts. then i use the jump link and read them. but suppose that instead of making a new post, someone decides to just go back and edit one of their posts in a thread. how will anyone who has already marked the thread as new find the new information?

which raises another question:
should editing a post mark that thread as new?

yeah I'd suggest so but only if the difference can be identified with attention to it (maybe jump to post edited? highlighting? 'edited at' timestamp?) -- otherwise people may not know why the thread is marked new when they click it and it sends them to the bottom.

yeah, i don't know. but it complicates things. that's kinda why i don't mind people making new posts and archiving the old ones.

yeah, I kind of like not having an edit feature. I vote you not implement one. I think it has too few benefits to justify it, really. the prospect of it messing up discussions if people edit their posts after they've been replied to is kind of remote but it bothers me anyways.

though a neat way of resolving this would be only allowing someone to edit their post if it's the most recent reply in a thread. or have a time limit on it or something.

lacking the ability to edit sucks though. it's just frustrating for someone who has a lot of formatting options on their post where you didn't account for something small like an end italics tag, and the only way for them to clean up the post is to copy paste the output and reformat that output of the entire post.

i guess it could be argued that this person should be more careful, but it results in a messier forum as people will generally correct small errors like this if its easy rather than redoing all the formatting and leaving the error there.

Do not mark new on edits. Maybe asterisk the post somehow if anything.

Personally I say don't recognize edits beyond maybe tagging it as having been edited.

i just found some code that may be extremely helpful:
http://shaunwagner.com/projects/php/diff_patch.phps

i hate relying on libXdiff and i don't want ttf to use it. so i may use this. the great thing is that it is mit/bsd or better! :D

here's another diff function:
http://www.holomind.de/phpnet/diff.src.php

i like how at the top of the page it says that the code is free to use..
but then it has a GPL license in the code :(

gpl has an assplugged concept of it being free.

RMS we love to avoid the smell of him.

more ideas:
http://www.buoy.com/(SessionID=e7d9aaf187f9be … aa48c5f8e7 )/pipermail/liphp/2006-November/002498.html
http://sourceforge.net/projects/phppatcher

shaun wagner's diff functions are pretty decent:
http://www.thinktankforums.com/diff_test.php
http://www.thinktankforums.com/diff_test.phps

although i wish it were more standard (like a unix diff). but as long as it always works and never breaks, i should always be able to patch together the data and use a different diff library.

i think i'll make a edit feature using this code. thoughts?

i'm so pumped up about an edit feature. i spoke with dannyp about it today. here's the deal:

edits should only be used for correcting typographical errors (spelling, grammar, code use, etc.) they should not be used to add content to your post. new content should go into a new post so that the thread is marked new and everyone will see it.

for this reason, edits may be moderated. you'll still be able to edit posts and have the changes take effect immediately, but moderators may review edits occasionally (as is done on wikis) to make sure that content isn't added. i don't want this to become a police state forum, but i do want threads marked new for new content. there will be a note about this on the editing page, and if you do it anyway, you'll get warned.

have you given any thought to the idea of only allowing edits on the most recent post in a thread? I think this would make the problem of adding content a lot less likely since people won't be able to go back and edit stuff they said in the middle of a discussion.

one other thing that just popped into my head was archiving having an effect on the continuity of a discussion. have you ever thought about having something displayed in a thread that says something like "a post by whoever at whenever was archived." or something like that.

hrm.. i'll have to think about all of this