Users able to edit thread titles - yay or nay?

So, I know I don't allow this on my community because if a user wants a title change, they can just report the thread to us and we'll take care of it.

But, then again, a user could edit their thread and make it an ugly title so to say.

So, what do you do? Do you allow users to edit thread titles or are you against this as well?

 

I will have to check mine but I don't think they can edit a title. Not sure. I would rather they didn't. I know I gave a short time limit for editing posts but I'm not sure if the title is included in that. Now I will have to go look. LOL.

James

 

Usually I just get them to PM a Moderator or Admin and they will sort it out for them. Most of the time its just easier for us to do it that way.

 

Yes, I allow it. It actually drives me absolutely insane when I can't edit them, so I prefer to keep the option open for members, too. It's rare that it's even needed, but it's also rare that it'd be abused, so I don't prevent it just based on the offchance that someone might abuse it.

 

I say nay, like you, @cpvr I prefer to have manually edited it myself.

If you offer the chance to edit thread titles, and more editing freedom, you end up having those "he said, she said" or one of "he did it!" cases.

 

Members on the forums I have had are not able to edit their titles. I mean, they can request an edit to one of the staff members if there is a problem, but they cannot do so on their own. It can get confusing if people are always changing the title of their threads. This makes it hard to keep track of what topics have an have not been covered and under which topics you have already posted.

 

In addition to what others have already pointed out with confusion and being easier to have a staff member do the edit, it's also important to remember that when the title changes using vbseo or other seo related Apache url rewrite, your SEO / SEM campaign is effected. A thread that may have been pulling 1k per month organic searches for "Fried fish sticks in NJ" can quickly drop to 2 searches per month with a new title of "NJ Fried fish sticks people like the most", which is a result of the index position changing upon the next algorithm crawl & update due to url values, title values, and content vs. keyword density values changing.

Eric Lyon

 

I am lazy at times so personally i would not mind if they edit the titles...I'd remove the option IF it was an issue down the road.
But editing a title because you made a mistake OR maybe you wanted to call it something else is fine.....

I tend to be way more democratic in my way of running my site....and allow the community more freedom. Makes my day way more easier

 

I have it so posts can be edited for a limited time, after that they can't.

 

Exactly because sometimes they screw up a good title, and I'm more about keeping a quality title for users + visitors + SEO.

 

I think users should be able to edit their posts for 10-30 mins to fix any grammar errors, or add on to the post. But after that they shouldn't be allowed to edit the posts. I also think that some forum sections should allow users to always be allowed to edit threads, because if they are selling a product, or post exchanges for example. They can add updates to the original thread.

 

So as mentioned otherwise, are you fine with letting them edit within the first half hour or whatever? They can't screw up SEO at that point really because there's nothing registered through search engines yet really.

 

Yes, up to an hour is fine with me.

 

I allow VIP members to edit their titles. VIP is either earned or paid for on my site and if the user paid for it, I don't think they'd invest money into my site if they wanted to be malicious. I think that is a good balance for the option to be honest.

 

I allow users to edit their threads.posts for 30 minutes after they post them after that they will have to ask staff to do it.

 

I like to let them within the first five minutes or so, but after that, it locks. Keeps everything in control.

 

I don't find a problem with it at all, unless someone abuses it. On the poster side, I don't mind contacting a staff member to edit one of my titles if I make a mistake though.

 

That's really the past way to do it. Because if a user gets mad, they can just edit out their own title and posts fast. It's more about having good security on your content.

 

I have to agree with Carlos, more editing freedom or more knowledge of a forum's user permission/abilities lends to issues in the future, such as abuse. It isn't pleasant when you have to take away a feature to member's. They are usually very unhappy about that. It's best that they don't know that feature exists. If they made a spelling error or something else on their thread title, IMHO, it's best they notify admin or a moderator to make that adjustment.​

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DarkGizmo has a good point to allow this feature to VIP member's. I've done that to member's in specific earned trade usergroups to be able to open and close their trade threads at will because of the nature of trading.​

 

I'm going for 'yay', but like some people above mentioned, only for a limited time. I had a 2-week limit for posts to be edited. After that, if someone wanted to edit their post/title, they had to contact a staff member to do so. I've had people who edited their titles with curse words and spam titles before.