Rewriting history

At one time or another we’ve all wished we hadn’t said something.

Of course, once something’s said, it’s impossible to unsay it. On a forum, it’s often different – you can go back and edit your post to remove something that you later realise was stupid or inflammatory or both. Sometimes (though not always) you can even delete your post altogether.

However, if you’re going to do this, please exercise a bit of consideration in how you do it. If you can edit it before anyone responds, that’s fine – with any luck you may have got away with it before anyone noticed.

But if people have already taken issue with your post, simply editing or deleted your post without comment is very bad form. It leaves them looking stupid, which won’t do anything to improve their moods.

Writing [Post edited] is better, but not much, as anyone coming along afterwards will still have no idea what the argument was all about.

It’s far better to give a brief summary of what you’ve removed and why. If you feel it’s appropriate, you could post a suitable expression of regret (or even an apology) after the latest post, but that will depend on the circumstances.

Better still, don’t edit or delete anything at all if it changes the meaning of what you’ve posted. If you regret what you said earlier, or want to correct a misunderstanding, post again and say so. Save edits for typos and spelling or grammar corrections.

Best of all, think more carefully about how others are likely to react to your post before hitting the “Submit” button in the first place.

(Some forum owners bar people from editing or deleting their own posts after a certain length of time has passed, or if the post has been replied to. This is a good thing.)

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