Is there any good reason for the JCC's edit time to be 30 minutes?

When the traffic was pretty high, it made sense. Now it's archaic and sometimes annoying. Yes, 30 minutes is plenty of time to correct most mistakes and maybe add a response to another post, but couldn't the same be said of posts made in the Senate (90-minute edit time)? I think the slower traffic and the fact that most JCC'ers are savvy about someone trying to be deceitful with edits make a 60-minute or even 90-minute limit completely reasonable.

 

Darth_Guy - I've referred this to the JCC mods in MS for discussion.

 

We are talking about it in MS but I just want to ask a completely non-sarcastic question - what is the reason anyone needs a 60 minutes or even 90 minute edit time? I'm honestly not understanding why, even in the Senate. I mean, couldn't you just post a second time rather than editing a post you made an hour ago? I just don't quite get why anyone would need that kind of edit time, probably because I've never had the personal need to go back and edit a post of my own after so long, really.

 

You seem to be assuming people would use the extra edit time to modify the substance of their post or argument. That's not necessarily the case. In threads with longer posts, it can be hard for authors to spot grammatical errors or abortive thoughts, and the extra time would help with polish. Additionally, if no one has read or responded yet, it makes little sense to let something poorly worded stand, and then spend the next 2-3 posts trying to defend your initial language rather than simply editing to say what you meant the first time, and side-stepping the whole non-productive controversy.

 

That's the thing. The JCC tends to go for quite fast-paced exchanges - even in proper debates.

 

The JCC isn't quite so fast-paced anymore.


Again, I realize that it's enough time to fix errors and such in most instances. But why shouldn't we be more liberal with the JCC edit time? I brought this up because I have had a few experiences recently where I would have benefited from a 60-minute time, and not in any debate thread.

 

I think it's safe to say that anyone who has spent time here in Comms over the years won't doubt that I've at times posted things that are rather larger and more verbose that what most people will have ever posted in the Senate, and I have never had an issue with the checking of those posts before hitting the submit button.

But either way, even with a slower JCC I still fail to see the need for a longer edit time. Who cares if you have a slight spelling mistake in a thread that you missed? And if people are worried about something they are posting being taken out of context or misinterpreted, then spend a few seconds thinking about what it is you have typed rather than automatically hitting the submit button right after you finish typing.

 

Why not eliminate the opportunity to edit entirely then?

 

Do you want to be the one to explain to the fanfiction writers among us why the edit option was eliminated if that happened?

 

Even if its changed in JCC, that won't affect FanFic

 

Yes, edit time is set at the board level. That's why you can have different times on different boards.

 

Have you not seen what they do to people over there for the slightest spelling mistake?

 

I would like to point out to people that it wasn't until 2002 that individual boards were able to have different edit times. Before then Fan Fic, how should I put it ... flourished ... without unlimited edit times.

Even, I'd happily have a 15 minute edit time across the board, or even none at all.

 

I don't like to be the one to point it out, but 2002 was nine years ago.

 

It's not simply an issue of "taking a few seconds to think" before one hits submit. The problem is more fundamental--the lack of distance/perspective from one's own work. An author can easily insert missing commas, letters, or even whole pieces of logic during a read through without realizing he's done so. It's part of the reason that a common editing recommendation is to let someone else look at the piece, or else take a significant break and come back to take a fresh look. It's not really a very radical concept.

On the other hand, what exactly is the cost of extending the edit time? What additional problems does such a move engender? Does it make managing the forum somehow more difficult?

 

You're talking about JCC posts... I mean, you're not writing your dissertation.

 

This lends soooooo much perspective to your overly verbose posts. Like Kristie said, it's the JCC.

 

You're free to dislike marathon length posts. But the reality is that they're pretty commonplace now on the JCC. Our most recent long exchange was over something as trivial as public perception of the Spiderman franchise in light of the film reboot. People come to the forums for all different reasons, and so long as those reasons are A)within the purpose of said board and B)do not cause other problems, there's no reason not to facilitate their enjoyment. Just saying "you shouldn't make posts like that" is not a terribly good response. Especially if no one can explain what the drawbacks of an extended edit time would be.

 

I said no such thing... post what you want to post.

Here's a drawback... say you type out a marathon post, somebody takes the time to read the entire thing, then types out a lengthy response... complete with ridiculous citations, block quotes, walls of text, bolded names... the thing takes forever to generate - can you imagine how annoying it would be to find that the post you took all that time to respond to, was drastically changed?

I'm just saying... if you missed something, or you want to add a different quotation / perspective, why can't you just make another post?

To be perfectly honest, I guess I don't care either way, but if there's a downside to it, I guess that's what I think it would be.

 

harp illustrated my main question on the whole thing. I mean, in the JCC, it's fast moving enough on 'hot button' topics (hello, look at the 'rape' thread) that going back 90 minutes to edit a post means that you're probably already a half a page, if not more, behind. So what's the point on having a 90-minute edit time when posting again would make more sense?

Again, I'm not opposed to lengthening the time because I don't see it as a major issue.

 

Erm.

I think you guys are conflating issues. Fast-moving threads are fast-moving, and threads with verbose posts tend to have verbose posts. It's not very often at all that they're the same. Take the rape thread, since that's the example that was raised earlier. The overwhelming majority of posts there are less than ten sentences in length (probably less than 5, in fact). Those making longer posts are either people who A)tend to be among our more verbose posters to begin with or B)are consistently making more lengthy posts in that thread. Critically, too, both they and the people responding to them seem to have their posts pretty well spaced out in time.

I don't see where the scenario you raised is ever likely to happen. Writing long posts takes time. The same effort required to appreciate additional edit time is the one driving long minimum response times. The scenario you're describing just doesn't seem to be one that conforms to my experience of how these threads actually go.

 

I agree with wocky on this. It may not be something that you would use every single day, but it is something that would be pretty useful now and then.

 

This a suggestion I've had for a while, but kept to myself -- assuming it's technically possible, could the edit time be the longer of (i) 30 minutes and (ii) whenever the next reply is made? 30 minutes is more than enough time to edit typos, etc., but there are times when I'd like to add/append rather than edit (mainly sports threads, where I'm following a game live), and I hate double posting.

 

Unfortunately that's not possible here. When we set an edit time length for a board we enter a numerical value for edit time in minutes, none, or disabled. We don't have an option to do what you want.

 

I'm with you all the way on this. I've been to many boards and this is the first to have limited edit times. It can be frustrating when I go back the next day to not be able to fix things that need fixing. Perhaps some of us are just impeccable proof-readers and good for those people but we all can't be so infallibe. The only point raised against extending the edit time could also be raised against having any edit time at all.