Timwi <timwi@...> writes:
Just because you don't think this is a problem, doesn't mean it isn't a problem.
So far I have addressed only the "problem" of people not knowing whether what they are reading is really what the author wrote. People complaining about edits is a whole other matter. To address that problem, we must think about why they are complaining. I am convinced that the large majority of such complaints are solely out of irrational, thoughtless behaviour: people just assume that they "own" their comments by default, and complain about any form of "tinkering" even when it's perfectly legitimate if they thought about it for only a second. Surely you can't agree to let this kind of stupidity take precedence over our wiki philosophy.
It isn't that people wish to "own" their comments, but that people believe their opinion should be represented as they wrote it. I believe there is a fundamental difference between an article, and a discussion. I don't understand why you should need to edit someone's comment, other than possibly spellchecking it. When you edit someone's comment, you are changing the discussion as a whole.
I've heard many reasons for maliciously changing a person's comment, but can you give me some examples of non-malicious changes?
I can definately see lawsuits based upon this. This is definately a valid argument.
I'm finding your "lawsuits" claim highly dubitable, and your repeated misspelling of "definitely" quite irritating. Are you a lawyer? (You're clearly not an English teacher, so the chances of you being a lawyer are somewhat higher.)
Oh shit, I mispelled a word, I must be an idiot. Do you always resort to flame-style tactics?
How about we get back to the topic at hand? I'm positive some time in the future we will see a lawsuit generated from userA against userB because userB changed what userA stated in a discussion page.
I do agree that this is mostly paranoia, so this argument by itself is not a good enough reason to change the discussions.
Why can you assume that the edit was harmless? During katrina, I had no internet access for weeks. If someone maliciously edited some of my comments during that time, would you assume that what was there is actually what I wrote?
And you think you're the only reasonable person in the world and everyone else only makes bad-faith edits and vadalises your comments. Get real. People already _do_ malicious editing, and other (well-meaning) people revert it. It's already happening, on all wikis. It's one of our very own Replies to Common Criticisms™!
There is a difference between an article, and someone's comments on an article. The article is a community written piece. Someone's comment is not a community written piece, it is an individual's written piece. The discussion as a whole is a community written piece.
In this aspect, there is "danger" in others editing comments.
You haven't shown any, except for the possible "lawsuits" claim. Do you have anything substantial to back that up?
I think there is a danger in changing the meaning of a discussion by changing the meaning of the comments contained within. Whether this is done maliciously or not, it can be harmful.
I think the original idea of LiquidThreads is a good solution for the problem. I don't believe the implementation would be easy though ;).
I believe a rudimentary implementation would be relatively easy, but it would be laborious, and so, few people will be willing to work it through until the end, and so, it will likely not get done very soon. A _good_ implementation (UI-wise as well as performance-wise) is quite a bit more challenging, so it will likely not get done at all.
I don't disagree entirely with you here; it probably won't get done. However, every large piece of software is laborious, and there is quite a bit of software out there that has been written (take mediawiki for example).
Ryan Lane