On Thursday, 24 March 2016 at 19:59:24 UTC, Walter Bright wrote:
On 3/24/2016 9:34 AM, Bruno Medeiros wrote:
Alternatively, some software allows seeing the edit history of
a post, so there
is always that as a fallback if someone where to edit
inappropriately.
Having public display of the edit history defeats the purpose
of being able to edit it.
In my opinion, the right purpose of post editing is to improve
clarity, or - more rarely - as a way of apologizing for something
that should never have been said. (Anyone interacting with me on
GitHub should be aware that I frequently edit my posts there,
especially within the first hour or so.)
In both cases, making the edit history public is appropriate
because it protects those who responded to the original bad
message from being made to look foolish/unreasonable, while still
allowing people to correct their mistakes.
"Deleting" posts should normally be accomplished simply by
editing the message to replace the body with "[message
retracted]" or something along those lines.
