Can't edit my own post a few minutes later

[PaigeMiller]

I tried to edit my post at https://communities.sas.com/t5/New-SAS-User/PROC-GLMSELECT-testing-incomplete/m-p/808149#M33667 a few minutes later, and was unable to do so. The "Edit" action is no longer available from the dropdown menu. Screen capture showing I am logged in (top right) and drop down menu that doesn't allow editing.

[Tom]

I think SAS made that change to how the forum works on purpose.  You have a short time window to edit your post and then it is essentially readonly.  I think the idea was to cut down on the confusion caused by replies to older versions of a post.

[PGStats]

This new behaviour is mentionned here.  

and also in the Super User Community Forum.

[Patrick]

@PGStats This post is from 2020 and it appears the time window applies to Questions. What only changed lately is that such a lock now also applies to my answers to a question - and I'm hating it!

Sometimes when my answer gets a like or becomes the solution I have a 2nd read of what I wrote and then sometimes see some spelling mistakes which I really would like to still be able to fix.

[PaigeMiller]

I agree, @Patrick , up until a few days ago, I could edit my responses an hour or two later, and sometimes when you re-read what you wrote, you find either outright mistakes or better ways to say what you said. I suppose I could always add a new response that indicates I am making a correction, but that doesn't feel as good to me. Especially since when I am at work, I have meetings or actual projects to work on, and I may go away from SAS Communities for an hour or two.

[SASKiwi]

@Patrick , @PaigeMiller I agree also. It's impossible to get your answers right and complete 100% of the time. I often correct or complete answers after the initial posting and it's not always in the 30 minute window we now have. 

[Quentin]

Agree, I think fine to limit edits of the original question, because that can cause a lot of confusion.

But the ability to edit an answer / response indefinitely was very handy.  I remember when I first joined here after being on SAS-L for years, I thought 'finally, I can fix my mistakes!'.  See also twitter s-l-o-w-l-y moving towards letting people edit tweets.  If over-editing of the responses is a big problem, I like @FreelanceReinh 's suggestion of making edits (to your own posts) an earned privilege based on rank.

[ChrisHemedinger]

These are all good ideas and I love hearing the feedback. We'll see what we can do to improve the experience. The levers we have are limited though -- for example, I cannot assign a permission for a reply that's different than a starting topic in a thread. But maybe a combination of UI tweaks and privilege tweaks can do the trick.

[ChrisHemedinger]

We made this change in answer to the (increasingly frequent) cases of an OP coming back and editing an existing post and "blanking out" the content or otherwise changing the substance such that existing replies don't make sense. As we documented, if a change is needed beyond the "editing window" (currently 30 minutes), you can ask us to help with that via the "Report Inappropriate Content" menu (or send email to communities@sas.com). 

Our Super Users have an elevated privilege -- they can edit posts anytime, because as part of this program they have asked to be able to edit things for spelling and clarity. But we have not granted this privilege outside of that.

[FreelanceReinh]

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@ChrisHemedinger wrote:

But we have not granted this privilege outside of that.

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How difficult would it be to extend the "editing window" for users with, say, rank "Tourmaline" or higher?

[Patrick]

Same question/request as @FreelanceReinh

Because a few rather new users have made a "mistake" and done something that wasn't ideal everybody gets now "punished"? 

This lockdown of my own contributions is very annoying. Already led now to a code answer with a small syntax error in it that I can't fix anymore. 

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[ChrisHemedinger]

I've increased the time allowed for edits to help with changes you might like to make within a day of posting. It's a balancing act with these privileges. We'll continue to tweak as needed and lobby for some better options for controls in the platform.

[FreelanceReinh]

@ChrisHemedinger:

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@ChrisHemedinger wrote:
I've increased the time allowed for edits to help with changes you might like to make within a day of posting. It's a balancing act with these privileges. We'll continue to tweak as needed and lobby for some better options for controls in the platform.

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I've just tried to do a minor correction to a post that I wrote this afternoon, less than seven hours ago. The "Edit" menu item was still there, but only until it triggered a message saying that I had run out of time for editing. So has that time been "tweaked" to much less than "within a day of posting"?