A plead for editing on this site.

Its a hard one Boobook , Sounds obvious but sometimes a reply is made to a post and if that posts context is changed by editing then the reply/follow might look distorted .

I find that it better to write a reply into notepad or something then cut/past into Ex Oz.

This is because many mistakes come from directly typing into a reply fiel.

Oops, the title should be Plea, not plead. Can't edit it though.

Fully supported hear Boobook. Sorry that should be heer no no here yes no

Add another YAY vote for editing. Bloody frustrating without!!!

Perhaps not the ultimate solution, but I always use a Microsoft Word Document for composing anything I write.

I can easily spell check and review prior to “dispatching” it to wherever it is going.

Just a thought…

Cheers, Baz

Merely perusing any number of the preceding posts reveals the need for an edit function ;o)

The layout of the whole forum needs to be updated and brought into the 21st century bringing in a common layout and facilities similar to most other forums.

Things such as editing, quoting, and sequential list of posts - like 99% of other forums would be good.

Garry

Let's not forget the search function straight from the dark ages as well. It's a great forum driven by crap software.

You are welcome to discuss this but keep in mind that as a result of implementing an "edit' facility, Members would lose the feature that copies the body text of replies/followups that they receive in email.

Edit would be good, but imo only, I think the ability to use italics etc for emphasis would be more useful.

At the moment we only have upper case, and that usually comes over as shouting.

To those that are pleading for an edit feature - are you sure that you have looked properly at the current Preview feature?

You type your reply in the box and before you click submit you click the orange PREVIEW button - that it shows you exactly what it will look like on the site (complete with your signature file etc).

PREVIEW mode looks identical to how it looks on the site after you've clicked submit BUT you are still in edit mode.

Once you are looking your post in Preview mode, there are TWO orange buttons giving you the choice to RETURN TO EDIT or SUBMIT so before you submit you have a chance to check it for errors and edit it.

I do wonder if people are rushing their replies and not using this edit feature that is provided within the PREVIEW. This allows you to go back and forth editing and checking as much as you like. Once you are sure, then you submit.

I often wondered about no editing available after submitting.

My only reasoning to this is.......................more posts.............and we all know what that means in the world of internet and websites......more traffic = more $$$$$

Exploroz owners.
serioulsy..if you want more traffic and thus more revenue, more payment worthy products and services sold and an easier life in general.

you need to look at a more modern outlook and format..and probably different software.

Go check "V bulliten board"...hell who knows it may even support a multi strand format.

cheers

I can see where you are coming from Boobook but I just live with my mistakes.

I stuff up a bit (mainly due to a drunken stupor) and just post a follow up, which then makes a bit of sense of what I have typed. I think.

I could use the preview which is available, but in that state of off my face I wouldn't be able to find it.

Anyway both sides of the argument are interesting and have merit and that is through my glazed eyes.

Actually, of its that bigger stuff-up and one you can't live with, as the poster, you may contact the mods and ask them to edit it for you. We are more than happy to do this although we urge that you use the simple tools that are there to assist you in the first place. In built spell check with your browser OR spell check facility provided AND/OR the "Preview" function prior to submitting the post. In all seriousness, how hard or time consuming can it be for you to simply check what you've written...c'mon now.

Regards

The modsquad

We don't post unless we have something to contribute. There are those here who seem to post mainly to stir the locals using aggressive language that simply encourages most to keep their heads down. That's a far bigger annoyance than the claimed lack of editing facilities.

Too often, in spite of using the preview facility, we'll post then realize we've made an error. It happens but it isn't a big deal. If we had one wish, we'd wish for the "Submit" button to be separated from the "Preview" button - logically submit comes after both preview and spellcheck. Just moving the "Submit" button one slot to the right would cut down on accidental posting which probably causes quite a few errors.

It is important that the subject matter NOT be changed by editing after discussion has commenced - things can get pretty out of hand here without that source of confusion! At the very most, perhaps editing (or totally deleting) might be permitted prior to any responses or followups being posted. There are problems with this too though, as replies being drafted at the time won't take account of the changes and will likely introduce further confusion. Think of the fights we could have if we could retrospectively reverse meanings just by slipping in a "not" here and there, or swap positive for negative in some of the electrical wrangles! North in place of south.... lots of options!

Many of the writing issues on here have little to do with a supposed inability to edit. Rather they stem from people jumping in to make hasty responses; no time to edit, making their point is more important. Other's issues stem from a poor command of spelling, grammar and punctuation; edit functions have only a limited ability to solve those problems.

If there are so many alternative forums out there the disgruntled ones are free to go there.

It's not broke - why "fix" it?

John and Val

Seems this is one of the hottest topics to surface on exploroz in a very long time.

look at the number of posts and followups and the number of veiws in such a short time.

Looks like its a more pressing issue than some want to believe.

cheers

Hey David, have you written this software yourself from scratch? If so then it must be unique. Well done no matter what the bad spellers say...whether you add an edit button or not. :-)

While we are on first world problems, I would really like to have all the emoticons available from other forum styles. Text smilies are so yesterday. :-0

Actually, I'm going to go completely off topic and ask for a search engine that works.

A number of times I've chased the contents of a previous post I've made which has relevance to a later post. Searching for like phrases to topic fails to find it, and searching for name in the posts fails completely. Unless you're the OP, it won't match...

Every year this topic comes up, multiple times some years. Same old arguments get trotted out on both sides. Same end result every time.

Harden up and move on. Nothing more to see here. LOL

Maybe I am in the minority here, but I am pretty happy with it the way it is. I usually read through and check before I submit though.

regards,
Heather

I vote to leave as is.

As others have said, check your post before submitting if you have concerns.

Alan

PS - I wont preview this posting as it is fairly simple and if some errors get through I'm not concerned. If I was starting a thread or was making a detailed reply then I would almost certainly use the preview feature.

The current size of this thread is an example of how threads become totally hard to follow at they get larger.

For sure if I want to look at the lastest post you just go to the bottom of the thread but we have followups which are really posts in their own right so to look at these you need to go through each post and go to the bottom to look for the last followup "post" - we are now up to 22 posts so is a bit tiresome.

Why not simply have a layout that is common with 95% of other forums.

This is the 100th reply to this thread!!!
And I too say not having an edit function seems not in tune with the wants of the users and not consistent withany other forum I frequent.
And why pay to become a member? Yes it is a commercial forum, just look around at all the banner advertising, what other forum does one pay to be a membe on?

Really?
CJ

I wonder what Winston Smith from the Ministry of Truth would have to say about the need for all this “historical revisionism”?

Good weekend to all, Baz – The Landy

There is only one reason that other forums or chat rooms incorporate an edit function and it is a very good reason too......... their contributors are illiterate and need every assistance to communicate.

Fortunately, the contributors to the ExplorOz forum, with one or two glaring exceptions, have a high level of literacy and do not have need of an aid to writing proficiency. On the rare occasion that an EO contributor incurs an error in text composition or grammatical form, the readers are of such comprehension that the oeuvre, or composition, is so obvious that the reader is left in no doubt of its intent or meaning.

Accordingly, even though the denizens of other forums may require such aids, there is no such general need for the ExplorOz community. It is obvious that David and Michelle have been profoundly aware of this from the beginning and so have not encumbered their clients with such a clumsy appurtenance and may it so continue.

As for adding an emoticon function.......... oh, please save me. A simple LOL suffices

OK, I am going to go against the grain on this topic.

At times, I have posted, or replied to something which contains something (when reading back) I would have liked to word differently.

But, rather than the ability to edit the original context, isn't it a simple matter of replying to your own post, or reply to another, by adding a reply correcting your own "mistake"?

Personally, I find a more important issue to be the lack of a really good spell check function to be more important issue.
The one on ExplorOz (for some obscure reason) uses an American based spell checker which is an absolutely ridiculous situation for us proper English speaking Countries.
The American language is nothing more than a lazy bastardization of English.

Personally, given time, I tend to copy & paste a draft of my posts and replies into MS Word, which I can set to English English and obtain the correct form of spelling for Australian use, rather than the bastardised American form.

Many folk don't give a tickers toss for accurate spelling of the ENGLISH language we in Australia have adopted. This can be obviously identified by not only the current generation of school students, but by some of their teachers who should know better. but probably were not taught the correct way when they themselves went to school as more importance was spent on the "phonetic" method, rather than the correct form of spelling.

Now, as I write this and use the ExplorOz Spell Check feature to initially identify spelling errors, I get an annoying "Server Check, Parser Error", so the entire context of my rant is probably wasted.
Even the bastardised Amrerican spellcheck feature is not working:-(

Oh, as for the format of this forum, I have got to say it is somewhat unique in what David has produced and I wouldn't like to see it changed at all.

It is so much a superior forum format to any other forum I have looked at.
The posts and the associated followups occur in an excellent logical way and I believe David is on an absolute winner here.

OK, my rant is over and my wine glass is empty. I can only hope there is some remaining in the bottle, otherwise I am going to be really really sad.

What I do find so interesting is that some on here would like a spell-checking facility, yet if I, or someone else, were to correct their expression, World War lll, lV and V all break out at once. It is as though their very heart has been speared. They have no interest in learning the correct word or spelling, merely in defending there now obvious illiteracy.

If I were to tell them that they are driving on the wrong tyres they would go to some length to debate the subject, but tell them they have used the wrong word and the response is vitriolic. Why are they not appreciative for the assistance?

SCOREBOARD:

Having little better to do, I added up the votes........

For an edit function......... Nine (9)

Leave it as is..................Sixteen (16)

Exploroz is a great forum and popular I believe not because of the great software it runs on but maybe on its past glories.
The fact that its forum layout is now quite outdated can be amply demonstrated by looking at the other forum which uses the same layout
http://www.triathlonoz.com/Forum/Default.aspx
The contrast in the successes cannot be more stark.
The other has struggled to even get responses, with maybe 20 threads in the last year and most of those by the "birthday fairy" (whoever he is :-) and the site owners.