[Mageia-webteam] [Bug 1956] Can not edit posts in forum (after timeout)

[Maat]

https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1956

Maat <maat-ml at vilarem.net> changed:

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                 CC|                            |maat-ml at vilarem.net

--- Comment #13 from Maat <maat-ml at vilarem.net> 2011-07-03 20:23:39 CEST ---
(In reply to comment #8)
> As I saw it the discussion on the real issue was minimal and the "decision" was
> pushed without any proper agreement. 
> 

Then let's see if we can do better here with objective arguments.


> > > and little or no consideration of the utility of the Forum as a research resource
> > > for users and of the fact that this limit can make life difficult for those people
> > > who spend time providing assistance to other users.
> 
> Exactly
>

On the contrary : BIG consideration was given to this point. But these special
users that are helping others on a regular basis are not common users. As
packagers or translators, or sysadmin are not common users either. All follow
mentoring process and are given the proper privileges once they have been
considered ready to do their jobs without help or control...

Users that write tutorials or that helps others on a regular basis can be
granted the proper privileges to edit own posts or other posts without
limitation. (Well for this point of posts needing permanent edition like
tutorials... see later doc-tool part which is a discussion)

But on a default basis no-one with common sense would give root password on the
servers or allow Mr Unknown to push whatever package he wants to the official
repositories... well on a less critical context users privileges on official
forums need obviously to follow similar scheme as other teams.

Roughy : 

=> Read only of topics for everybody (opensource way)
=> Comment / Create topics for common subscribers
=> More privileges for active forums contributors (like people helping others
on a regular basis or writing tutorials, or packagers that make the effort to
come to help users...) privileges that can vary depending of contributors
needs/activities.


> > You have to distinguish the forum-as-a-discussion-place (where keeping posts in
> > their original form is crucial) and the forum-as-a-support/doc-tool-place
> > (where obsoleting/updating posts, with update timestamps is crucial as well).
> > 
> > Both have their own contingencies and may be best served by distinct platform
> > (the former is more in phpBB's original purpose, the latter more in an
> > equivalent to http://stackoverflow.com/ platform).
> > 
> > If those are to be served by the same platform, that makes several use cases to
> > satisfy. And here obviously, the forum was first thought as a discussion
> > platform.
> 
> Well no actually :-
> http://www.mageia.org/en/support/ 
> 
> This shows the forum as primarily a "support forum" not as a discussion place.
> 

There is njon contradiction there : Many projects use bugtrackers like Buzilla
as a support system (others use mailing lists or Sourceforge/Savannah embedded
miniforums). All those don't allow late edition. And very few consider that
abnormal :) 

Support IS discussion and nothing more :)

Considering it as a doc-tool place is another thing... very different indeed.

This last point needs a proper and broader discussion because if you start
considering the forum as a place where storing tutorial, guides, howtos and
other things with a long lifetime you'll find wiki advocates on your way. And
till we have that point settled i'll remain prudent on edition features
activation and tutos/howtos/guides team building on the forum because that
would put me in position of puching ball (and i'm not that fond of such
roleplay).

And to finish on that : we can separate discussions and permanent-doc-tool
publication with the same phpbb platform (provided the wiki/forum discussion is
properly dealt with)... but at the moment the forum is (i confirm) more thought
as a discussion/support platform thant a doc/tool/publication one.

(We can also consider to change this during discussions)

> > 
> > So you may of course argue of the contrary, but arguing won't lead as far as
> > really giving a hand, joining the team and helping to better configure the
> > team, the platform, and if needed, a distinct platform.
> >
> 
> By reporting this bug the intention was to give a hand at improving the forum
> by making the job of those prepared to help and offer support easier.

Well, at the moment if you have a true need to edit your posts because they
look like 
tiny tutos/guides/howtos and because you prefer to work on the forum for these
publication 
we can start an experimentation with you (specific user role like tutorial
writer and/or specific
forum area with a name to be defined) and see if the result is positive / users
feedback...

> Likewise with https://bugs.mageia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1188 which has also
> fallen on stony ground.
> 

It did not... but i'm not sure doing the reqested change bring more good than
harm.
(It can be reverted though if we have many users complainig and it will not put
topic 
flow at risk on the contrary of edition privileges)


> > Furthermore, arguing of one's experience with forum is not that much helpful -
> > some have satisfying experience with forums with no edit capacity, as that was
> > an expected behaviour.
> 
> The whole point of this bug report is that this is NOT expected behaviour. Most
> of the helpers in this forum come from Mandriva where the forum worked just
> fine without any time limit.
> 

In my opinion it IS expected behavior : if you push words to the world (IRL
speaking, or in mail or ir instant messaging) noone could expect to be able to
get back in the future to erase the said words.

In a forum if you say something and that people refer to it later in the topic
(or elsewhere in personal blogs or bugtrackers or whatever) They expect the
targeted post not to change because if it changes drastically their answers
would loose sense. And that is not what one should expect.


> This bug report is not about politics but simply about the time limit on the
> editing of posts.
> 
> Can we put the politics to one side and discuss just the bug please?
> 

Then you have technical and objective arguments on the matter itself here :)

And for the "valid" reasons you gave :

(In reply to comment #0)
> There are many valid reasons why it may be necessary to edit a post.
> 
> 1. It imparts incorrect information.

It could also allow to break valid information (think for example of spammers
that could post unharmful links like screenshots with basic user question then
change them 3 weeks later to push viagra or whatever)

> 2. The information is out of date.

For this a later post is a better way because a big change on out of date
information would result in many posts making no sense (like "hey the link is
broken : here is the good one").

Further, sometimes the date can be still valid for some users or some versions
of software (think that people don't always follow the update rythm... changing
the data to match new versions would deprivate them from the original post
which is what they need)

For that editors discipline is the only solution (choosing between new post
and/or update with a proper changelog so that users can know that the post was
edited when and why...)

And we would not expect such discipline from every user... so we come back to
mentoring process and dedicated privileges for users that will play by the
rules...

> 3. A minor edit would improve comprehension.
> 

For tutorials and things like that yes... but do we want forums to host such
pieces of valuable information ? (See wiki vs forums discussion here above)

For discussions : better explain later so that posts of users asking for
precision do not loose sense.

> In all these cases it is not appropriate to add another post to offer a
> correction as it may be several pages from the original post, also the
> incorrect post would still be available to be read.
>

Well as said above, it is often better to have access to the original post
(wich is not necessarily "incorrect") so that the logic flow of the following
post is not broken. (Again: except for reference posts like tutos).


> Forum posts are searched and used to solve problems in a similar way to the
> wiki.
> Imagine the author not being able to edit a wiki entry.  

Yes but we DO HAVE a wiki and the forum is not necessarily supposed to compete
with it... if you try to push the idea of having long life piece of information
on the forum you'll have to pass over the dead bodies of wikis advocates :o)


> BTW I tried to get a post modified by reporting it to the mods with clear
> instructions about what needed changing and it's now at 3 days and counting
> with no response.

You have had your post modified... there is still a mod we to finish (because
nothin fit our needs for that) to accelerate processing of reports. Once done
you'll wait far less.

And for making a topic as Sloved a mod is also on it's way : so no need for
edition on this aspect :)

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