Cannot edit post

[DSapseid]

Im just trying to edit/remove my post on here http://www.edugeek.net/forums/graphics-requests/79113-new-school-emblem.html as the school has decided to run with it even though it looks awfull!! so the thread isnt needed. But i cant see the edit button :/ Edited July 8, 2011 by ZeroHour

[FN-GM]

You can only edit 3 hours after posting.

[DSapseid]

what in the first 3 hours? or after 3 hours?

[Haptic]

I thought it was once someone else responded you couldn't alter it - I have had to edit a few times normally concerning my spellin and gramma!

 

Chris

[plexer]

what in the first 3 hours? or after 3 hours?

 

You can only edit a post within the first 3 hours of posting it after that you will need a mod/admin to do it please report the post and it will get sorted.

 

Ben

[Hightower]

what in the first 3 hours? or after 3 hours?

 

Well, if 3 hours has already passed and you can't edit it....... I'll let you do the math

[DSapseid]

Well, if 3 hours has already passed and you can't edit it....... I'll let you do the math

 

haha yeh fair enough, silly question by me there!!!

[ZeroHour]

As others have said, you can only edit in the first 3 hours but you can now edit a title for 21 days, just not the message.

[plexer]

Post has now been moderated but not deleted in case it requires ressurection in the future.

 

Ben

[JRowley]

Sorry for bumping this but I did a search regarding this and this was all I could find really.

 

Is there a specific reason editing is limited to 3 hours? It's difficult to maintain an informative thread without editing the first post. In my view, having moderated and administered forums in the past the edit restriction should be removed in it's entirety, there are no benefits to keeping it in place.

[witch]

@Dos_Box

[Dos_Box]

Because spammers have a tactic where they come back and add links into old posts that are seemingly innocent to begin with.

As this is an 'old' post being edited it does not appear as a new addition in the whats new lists and therefore does not get detected by members.

[zag]

Just another +1 on this.

 

Really annoying that I can't keep my software threads up-to-date with the 1st post.

 

As far as I can remember there was some drama years ago with someone changing a 1st post or deleting it and loosing a big thread. I don't understand why we all have to suffer for that though!

[LosOjos]

Just another +1 on this.

 

Really annoying that I can't keep my software threads up-to-date with the 1st post.

 

As far as I can remember there was some drama years ago with someone changing a 1st post or deleting it and loosing a big thread. I don't understand why we all have to suffer for that though!

 

Set up a webpage for said software, link in first post to webpage. When there's an update, you post about it, thread gets bumped to "what's new" and this alerts people to updates.

[JRowley]

Because spammers have a tactic where they come back and add links into old posts that are seemingly innocent to begin with.

As this is an 'old' post being edited it does not appear as a new addition in the whats new lists and therefore does not get detected by members.

 

How common is/was this?

 

That's an incredibly long term strategy for a spammer, and in this day and age on this forum I can't see there being a security issue given the firewalls and security software we all use? Not to mention good active moderation can handle this.

 

I think the benefits far outweigh the potential risks.

Edited October 6, 2014 by JRowley

[Dos_Box]

How common is/was this?

 

That's an incredibly long term strategy for a spammer, and in this day and age on this forum I can't see there being a security issue given the firewalls and security software we all use? Not to mention good active moderation can handle this.

 

I think the benefits far outweigh the potential risks.

 

This is the point. This tactic slips past moderation as the posts are edited after they have been 'inspected' by members. And as EduGeek is a BIG site we get targetted by internet low-lifes using any and all tactics. If we were to disable this feature we would get hit once more. It's not a question of 'if' but simply 'when'.

As regards pro-active anti-spam measures, in the past week we have experianced a sustained spam attack on the site. We see this all the time and it is a full time job for the mods to clear this type of thing up let alone trawling through old threads looking for newly introduced hidden links.

I do sympathise, and hopefully once we have moved to the new platform we will be able to introduce some much better control over what nw vs old members can do.

Edited October 6, 2014 by Dos_Box

[zag]

I do hope it changes in the future...

 

Any crude spam prevention measures that effects normal users like ourselves is most likely not doing its job properly.

[JRowley]

I very much doubt it's as big a problem as your suggesting, I have moderated significantly larger forums than this using vbulletin and it's never been an issue, members report suspicious links if they see them, moderators deal with the moderation queue when required. The public isn't stupid they can tell a spam post and suspicious link when they see one.

 

You could simply stop new members creating new threads until they achieve a specific post count, and then any new posts in threads which appear to be spam can be deleted long before they come back and edit in suspect links.

 

I've never actually heard of the tactic your suggesting either, as it requirements them to create valid posts first, which aren't spam then come back and add things to them. It sounds ludicrous frankly.

Edited October 6, 2014 by JRowley

[elsiegee40]

Spamming on Edugeek is a big issue. Believe us. As one of the top ranked websites in the world... it's comfortably within the top 0.5% of sites judging by the number of hits... we are constantly being targeted. Personally, I cannot see the 3 hour problem being anything more than an irritation. If you do need a post editing, just report it or PM a mod and we will be happy to sort out for you. Doing that is infinitely more interesting than using Spam-o-matic !

[JRowley]

Spamming on Edugeek is a big issue. Believe us. As one of the top ranked websites in the world... it's comfortably within the top 0.5% of sites judging by the number of hits... we are constantly being targeted. Personally, I cannot see the 3 hour problem being anything more than an irritation. If you do need a post editing, just report it or PM a mod and we will be happy to sort out for you. Doing that is infinitely more interesting than using Spam-o-matic !

 

This change really wouldn't effect the amount of spam you would have to deal with in the slightest, the forum I used to moderator is ranked 40k (ranked 12,000th as opposed to 53,000th here) places higher up the rankings than this one and to this day I can still edit the first post I ever made on that forum.

 

Having to PM someone is significantly more work than just editing the post, I can do it at a moments notice and can do it at any time of day, it is a massive inconvenience.

 

Is there a possibility of trialling it?

Edited October 6, 2014 by JRowley

[plexer]

At this moment in time due to all development being put in to the new edugeek forums I can't see there being any changes made whatsoever to how the current site operates.

 

Ben

[ZeroHour]

Here goes, Dos_box is correct about the editing, it does occur and because an edit doesn't count as a post they would be missed by the mods if we had say unlimited editing. This would lead to a lot of links to bad sites after they have seeded a forum, also it would allow links to be added retrospectively to posts after a limit on X posts before links can be posted.

We are actually getting hit by a group of spammers currently but we are zapping posts as fast as possible while I build an AWS image as an firewall to allow more fine grained control.

Regarding limiting new threads, sadly that would lead to huge amounts of thread bumping until people could actually post their question/topic.

 

I realise the 3 hour limitation is annoying and it does create various problems like you all have listed. I looked at various solutions including adding the ability to give a person thread mod rights but that would still create a process where you would have to contact an admin or mod before editing which is not ideal. This problem is even more of an issue for job threads tbh as they get updated all the time.

 

So what can we do, well I have a few ideas to allow limited legacy thread editing outside the 3 hour window. Possibly initially allowing editing of a 1 or 2 threads per 24/X hour period (unlimited edits for X hours) and seeing how it goes, it just depends on the amount of hacks required.

[Andrew_C]

You could simply stop new members creating new threads until they achieve a specific post count,

And stop probably the most common sign-up route. I'd guess that most people joined the forum in a panic, trying to fix a problem, and the FIRST thing they needed to do was ask a question. (OK, some of them might have found their answer reading a FAQ, or searching)

[Dos_Box]

This change really wouldn't effect the amount of spam you would have to deal with in the slightest, the forum I used to moderator is ranked 40k (ranked 12,000th as opposed to 53,000th here) places higher up the rankings than this one and to this day I can still edit the first post I ever made on that forum.

 

Having to PM someone is significantly more work than just editing the post, I can do it at a moments notice and can do it at any time of day, it is a massive inconvenience.

 

Is there a possibility of trialling it?

@JRowley Can I ask which site you are using to get your ranking referances as these sites are notroiously innacurate. One I sometimes use shows us at 18,400 (ranking.com), but I can take that wth a pinch of salt.

[JRowley]

And stop probably the most common sign-up route. I'd guess that most people joined the forum in a panic, trying to fix a problem, and the FIRST thing they needed to do was ask a question. (OK, some of them might have found their answer reading a FAQ, or searching)

 

The alternative then is to used a plugin for VBulletin to restrict editing to users with more than 10 posts, problem solved as far as I'm concerned.

 

@JRowley Can I ask which site you are using to get your ranking referances as these sites are notroiously innacurate. One I sometimes use shows us at 18,400 (ranking.com), but I can take that wth a pinch of salt.

 

I'm using Alexa, Rankings.com seems to be one of those that you describe as being innacurate.