Change to "Time limit on editing/deleting own posts"


 
I've only been here a couple years, but in that time I have almost never seen a "bad" or "nasty" post. What Chris (and all of us, really)has done is to foster an incredible, outgoing community of incredible people. Like many, I'm involved in several different forums: this one is hands-down the best.

There's a lot of really good, logical posts in this thread. The proof of integrity lies in the reactions...no one flies off the handle here. We disagree with respect, and we encourage the he** out of each other.

So I don't know exactly what happened or why, but I am legit surprised to hear that someone deleted their own threads/posts.
 
TomRc said:
Welcome aboard and thanks for contributing to the discussion. Also, congrats on being the exception rather than the norm. I was a member for 6 months or more before making my first post so I've been there and done that myself. At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, I'd like to touch a bit deeper on a couple of your points with some follow-up thoughts of my own.
1. The best and most active communities are the ones that have members who participate in a variety of ongoing and sustainable topics on a regular basis. Spinning wheels on the same rehashed questions and drive-by members are not that.
2. Having to wait a few days to post is not the end of the world. Nothing we do here is of such a time sensitive nature that it can't wait a week to delve into despite how critical it might seem to someone in the moment.
3. This same waiting period would give a person the opportunity to search for an answer and therefore come up with a better or more complete question to pose. A better question = a better answer. And yes, it would weed out a good portion of the one and dones and classified droppers per se.
4. As for the database of threads for web searches etc, I would like to think that a few ongoing, detailed, and accurate threads on a topic would be more useful to a new or potential member than a whole bunch of similar threads with conflicting or incomplete responses on the same subject.
5. What you see as instinct, I see as a historical pattern.
6. In regards to the echo chamber of old timers, sadly, you are 100% correct. We absolutely do suffer from this as a group. I've seen quality thoughts or ideas shot down unceremoniously without cause because it doesn't fit into someone else's way of thinking on more than a few occasions. At times, we offend a new member in their very first post by being short or critical. Is it the question itself or the redundancy that leads to this? I sure don't know the answer.
Please don't read too far into anything I say. I don't mean to disparage at all and am actually thrilled for the engagement on the topic. I think this discussion is probably overdue and I would love to hear more people chime in one way or another. I'm even open to having my mind changed along the way.
Click to expand...
ETA: I sure did further the misdirection of this thread! Coming in late! Sorry!

I'll leave it anyhow...


I haven't been here long enough to know much about the history at all, so what I'm about to say has no long-term context here, but I do have an opinion about a couple of things, which may or may not fit with who/what this forum *is*, since I haven't been around long enough to see the full personality of it yet.. Still....I want y'all to know that being able to post right away is what kept me here.

I joined so that I could find out information, and although I'm not a young woman, I think most of the world--even me-- has moved to "information now, when I need it" as a default. (one reason youtube has done so well I think.) If I had not been able to post or ask a question, and could not find what I needed easily (it's seldom easy to navigate a new-to-you forum) I would have just moved on (and actually my grill would be gone, as I was about to drop $375 on a refurb out of Nashville--he offered me $75 as a trade in for my grill.) After finding you all I realized quickly that my grill is probably better than the refurb he had (only 4 years old). Now, that would have meant nothing negative for this forum, but it would have certainly been a negative consequence/mistake for me, as I have found this community to be an amazing place so far.

I do moderate a technical subforum on a site that is about as far from here as Oz is from Kansas ( has nothing to do with grills.) We deal with the same issue...newbies asking the same old question every few days, and the subjects rotate with the seasons. While that forum has a search function, it's not particularly easy to use, especially for a newbie. So if the regulars aren't willing to be nice and link to older posts (or often, to the archives) as DanHoo and others did for me, we ask them to just scroll on by and let the folks with more patience for repeat questions take point on those. The thing is for us over there, there aren't a lot of subjects that haven't been hashed and rehashed over 20 years. So if we don't respond to newbies, there's not a lot of conversation in the technical subforums. We've decided it's better to encourage new people, and bring them along into our world, than to discourage those repeat questions. Those same old questions keep our forum active, and active is good for us. That may not be relevant to y'all, as you seem to have a pretty happening place here.

It sounds like you all have classifieds (which I haven't seen yet) and one thing you might want to consider is a rule that "you can't post an ad to sell something until you've been here for X number of posts (or a time frame, or whatever.) That's common and very reasonable. The forum where I mod has that rule, and that also gives the regular people time to judge the mettle of the newbie. Is this an honest person or a scammer?

Anyway, this newbie is very glad she could post right away, and that you all welcomed her in.....no matter if changes are made in the future. :)
 
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