The British Steelies Society

As "early adopters" to this, the new BSS Forum, I feel it should be down to you guys now to decide on certain factors (rules) which were left at default options when I installed the software and which I may have tweaked here and there since.

The first one is a user's ability to edit or delete their own posts, which Basil has already noticed is currently set to within 10 minutes. There are pros and cons to each choice, for example the flow of a topic is sometimes better maintained if users can't edit their posts, but everyone makes mistakes and so maybe a time limit on editing would be better than no editing at all?

When the poll closes I'll set it according to the majority vote here - the poll is open for 7 days.

If you feel any other options should be added to the poll post here and I'll add them.

It just dawned on me that while options 1 & 2 are striaghtforward, options 3, 4 & 5 all mean pretty much the same thing (time limited editing), the only difference being the time limit.

With that in mind, I propose votes for 3, 4 & 5 be added together, and if that method wins we'll worry about the time limit later if there isn't an outright winner!

It's a good poll, as for me I think the option to edit should have a proviso, If it's possible. Editable indefinitely, but NOT deletable after a day.
Sometimes a crash can leave you locked out for a while and the inability to edit mistakes could make people like me (who are somewhat slow) look foolish.
It's only by reading my posts that I can see the errors, I can't see formatting, spelling or grammatical errors "Out of Context"
Now being somewhat dumb is not my sole domain and I'm sure there are others in my clan..

As a further example, the American SGF is quite successful, and there the ability to edit is permanent.
A VERY GOOD example of why it's a necessary feature to implement is this:-
There is a link in the "Steel Without Pedals Section" to "Non Pedal Tablature" this is necessary because the non pedal players have to wade through pages of pedal tab to find suitable material.
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=169221
Now please excuse the preamble, it's over. The non pedal tab section encourages MULTIPLE links within a SINGULAR post to various other posts with relevant tab.
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopic.php?t=169298

If these posts of multiple links were NOT editable, very soon you'd have pages of posts, whereas in the present format the posts only extend maybe one page as the regular posters "Top Up" their content..
Like this STILL editable after almost a year..

Basil,
The problem with 'topping up' an old post is that it doesn't get bumped up to the top of the page (on the SGF)

I've amended a few old posts (mostly in the 'Tablature' section), but then had to add a new post to the thread to bump it to the top (above all Erv's posts )

ZeBedee aka the spring man

Basil Henriques wrote:It's a good poll, as for me I think the option to edit should have a proviso, If it's possible. Editable indefinitely, but NOT deletable after a day.

This is possible, they are two separate settings (see below) and I think disabling deletion quite early on is a good idea nomatter what the outcome is on the editing side.

Basil Henriques wrote:Sometimes a crash can leave you locked out for a while and the inability to edit mistakes could make people like me (who are somewhat slow) look foolish.

I agree, but the flipside is that editing a post which has already been replied to can possibly make any replies look foolish!

Basil Henriques wrote:[snip]...If these posts of multiple links were NOT editable, very soon you'd have pages of posts, whereas in the present format the posts only extend maybe one page as the regular posters "Top Up" their content..

Zebedee wrote:Basil,
The problem with 'topping up' an old post is that it doesn't get bumped up to the top of the page (on the SGF)

That's the main problem with edited posts vs new posts - anyone checking for "new posts" will miss the edit altogether unless the topic is then bumped, and even then the new content is not immediately obvious unless edit information is included - which defeats the purpose (imho).

Zebedee wrote:Basil,
The problem with 'topping up' an old post is that it doesn't get bumped up to the top of the page (on the SGF)

I've amended a few old posts (mostly in the 'Tablature' section), but then had to add a new post to the thread to bump it to the top (above all Erv's posts )

ZeBedee aka the spring man

The SGF gets by that problem by making a "Stickie" listing within it the most prevalent poster's MAIN post. On the SGF it only extends to just over one page of a list, and they have almost 10,000 members.
How many are you going to have posting the likes of Tab on a regular basis. The solution works well on the SGF as those who want specific tab can go to the stickie for that section and see a list of the most proliferant contributors.

The "Topped Up Content is readily recognisable as an unvisited link (Different colour) Except of course for the blind who use text/speech software, and even then I believe that Dragon has an option to identify visited links.

Maybe subsections as "Stickies" is the answer..

It's a bit of a "Fud" that there's no more votes.. Apathy ?

Basil Henriques wrote:It's a bit of a "Fud" that there's no more votes.. Apathy ?

Possibly...better that than trying to corrupt the result with duplicate votes by the same person as multiple usernames, though

(duplicate votes have been / will be removed)

Gerrymandering, NEVER ! not I..

Basil Henriques wrote:Gerrymandering, NEVER ! not I..

Haha, I'm not pointing any fingers - at last count there were at least 4 members who go by more than one username...

...and I know who you all are