Do you edit other's posts? When and why?

If a post has a tiny bit of sensitive or inflammatory content, do you edit it/warn the user or delete the entire thing? If you edit for content, do you also edit for things like spelling? Do you have "Edited by:" notices turned on or off?

 

If I edit a post, I only edit the stuff that shouldn't be there. If I do that, I always type in something like *** removed by Lynne *** right where the stuff used to be in the post. We have Edited by turned off, but if you write something for a reason, it will show anyway. So, if I edit someone's post, I always put a reason so they can see that it was modified by me and when.

And I never would correct spelling unless a user asked me to correct it in their post.

 

I have one admin that goes over all new threads every night and fixes spelling issues and relevancy in thread titles. By relavancy I mean if some posts "Help!" we'll look at the subject matter and create a title that will draw replies such as "Help, My Muffler Bearings are all Worn."

Besides giving the thread a fighting chance of being replied to by members I have to think this helps SEO as well. I've yet to have anyone complain about this as it does seem to help them in the long run. We also find that we have fewer changes to do with the "old guard" as they get the point after a few subject line fixes.

Unless the post is inflammatory we otherwise let it be.

 

What I and my team does is very similar to what Lynne does. I just remove the content (replace it with "Removed by Moderator"), enter a reason in the "Edited By" box, and post a moderator note in a subsequent post using our special moderator/admin BB Code.

I would never edit a member's post for spelling; but I would highly consider changing the thread title for the reasons mentioned above: relevancy (site search) and SEO. It's in our guidelines that we ask users not to use unspecific titles like, "Help!", so they expect it to be changed if they do.

 

I'm not really interested in being a Grammar policemen unless it's in the title. The rest stays unchanged unless it's stuff that shouldn't have been posted in the first place.

 

The only times I edit a user's post for spelling is if they ask me to edit the title, or if the error is so egregious that it will bring the wrong type of search engine traffic.

 

Great question and I'm sure everybody has different principles when it comes to editing posts. To expand on what's already mentioned, I occasionally stumble across informative and helpful post littered with cuss words. I find that rather than deleting the posts for excessive and potentially harmful cussing, I will simply edit or replace said words, leave an edit note and deal with the user in a polite manner - reinforcing the forum rules.

Whatever the situation, I feel it's imperative to leave an edit note. This way if a user contests the edit, they will know whom to contact.

 

I never edit an user post exept if it saying something that is not allowed to have in there post but never any grammer changes.

 

I only edit when something is in direct breach of forum guidelines, or is directly attacking a member, admin or something like that.

I have edited by: notices turned off but let the original thread poster know by infracting them or pm when something is done.

 

I mostly edit wrong embed YouTube bbCodes. Few people tend to read the instructions for that bbCode...

 

i edit the post and delete the text that i was going to delete. then i give the member a warning.

 

i edit the posts when the bbcodes are wrongly used as they spoils the sentences structure

 

Uhh, I edit some times, but I do not see the need to mostly. I think that people could edit it and such, they can see it for themselves.

 

I only edit when a user posts something that he shouldn't.

 

I basically do exactly what Lynne and Nick said.
I'd never change their post for my own personal reasons, though. Unless I noticed a broken link (I've changed "http://http://" when I see it, in the past).

 

Yes, if the language is beyond explicit and unreadable.

I do it not-so-often.

 

If it's really that bad, you should probably just get rid of the entire post. There usually isn't anything worth salvaging if the user is that cheesed off.

 

Well, I don't like removing stuff unless I'm really pushed to do so.

 

depends, if it's a great post, but a few lines not needed (ie attacking another member or something) then i'll edit, but i don't edit for spelling mistakes or anything like that.

 

I've seen some administrators edit certain posts due to spelling and/or grammatical errors. While I'm a fanatic when it comes to being grammatically correct, I won't go out of my way to change the writing style(s) of other individual members. That's just a bit ridiculous.