To Edit or not to Edit ...that is the question!

Every forum owner can decide if "Edit Message" will be allowed or not.

"Edit Message" is always allowed on messages that nobody replied to.

But, if a forum owner decides that "Edit Message" should not be allowed, then the button will disappear on messages that have replies.

Why?

There are 2 way to abuse "Edit".

In debates, "fake angel" is a common abuse:

you flame someone, call him a m*o*r*o*n or such and you provoke him/her into "counter attack".

Then later you edit your own message and it appears you have been attacked for no apparent reason. You are an angel.



Another form of "Edit" abuse is spam.

A smart and patient spammer joins discussions, and posts normal messages into many different forums.


14 or 30 days later, the same person returns to all of his/her messages and edits content, including advertisements and links to his website.

Messages, being old, are under the moderators radar, but Google can pick them up and backlinks to his/her website can improve his/her site rating.


We will have to decide by voting if "Edit disable" is something that should be used or not.

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