Posted by Peter H on March 21, 2008 at 18:32:40 from 86.130.131.34 user Peter_H.
In Reply to: The TarBoard Reaction facility (was Making tents? ...) posted by Jock on March 21, 2008 at 14:30:16:
The facility to rewrite posts
That's not what I meant by 'TarBoard Reaction facility' - in fact, the opposite - not so much back-editing as pre-editing. However, if we look at a 'rewrite post' or 'back edit' facility, I don't see how it could work. To me, it suggests illogicalities somewhat similar to those of 'time travel'. If we each had the ability to alter our postings already up on TarBoard, the result could be chaos. Suppose I put forward a view, and several TarBoarders dispute that view (a fairly familiar scenario). So I alter my original post to reflect the subsequent views and take them into account, or maybe to 'spike the guns' of a follow-up. That would leave the follow-ups 'hanging' without any evident support. The authors of those posts might also start to edit them. And so on. If you were reading TarBoard you would have to remember to refresh every few minutes, in order to keep up. And the gradual evolution of arguments would be wrecked.
It is for precisely that reason, I think, that Ian does not remove postings at the casual request of TarBoarders (NB I only assume this - please don't jump down my throat if I'm wrong). If he did so, that might make the thread impossible to understand. For instance I would prefer Ian to remove my post 30552, but that would render 30553 meaningless, and I have no right to ask for removal of someone else's post. I honestly can't see any practical alternative to the present set-up, which seems to work quite well.