Hopefully a helpful suggestion

[majm]

I think perhaps Martin was referring to examples where someone makes a lot of small postings in rapid succession with no replies in between. In cases like this I often wonder why they don't marshall all the information first and then make one or two longer postings.

Otherwise I agree that posts shouldn't be modified after replies have been made, because the modification could well be missed.

This has happened to me. In a few cases its been clear that the person concerned, having realised they'd made some sort of error, has gone back and completely altered the text of their reply. I'd have more regard for them if they'd admitted that their reply was incorrect rather than doing a furtive edit.

See my next post   

[Mart 'n' Al]

JenB, 100%.  I really despair when people type something, and then overwrite it with deletion characters, and still post the comment rather than totally remove the deletion. I think that makes sense.

I worked in IT my whole career and I strongly believe in passing on ideas that have been successful elsewhere. I've worked with people of all sorts of abilities, both educationally and physically, and I just try to make things easy for the majority.  I'm very aware that you can't please all the people all the time.

Martin

[majm]

Yes, 

Totally wiping out their original words,  replacing them with info that may be in later posts by several posters ... and which contradicts their original words ... and if you mention it ....

JM  must log out,  after midnight here and our visitors arrive in the morning.

[JenB]

Yes, 

Totally wiping out their original words,  replacing them with info that may be in later posts by several posters ... and which contradicts their original words ... and if you mention it ....

If I notice I do make a specific point of mentioning it.

[Sloe Gin]

There was a woman on another forum that I used to frequent who was very .... forthright with her opinions.  She was a condescending know-it-all type, but she was also sometimes wrong.  She would of course never admit to being wrong, that sort never do.
 
She was a past master at going back to her post and making alterations to it, so that the context of any responses was lost, and the replies then seemed to make little sense.

I soon learned never to reply to her without quoting the full text of her post, so that she couldn't change what she'd written without revealing her dishonesty.

[Viktoria]

I am not sure it is deliberate dishonesty,perhaps the poster did not notice something even when they read through their posts before posting.
Also when you read through you sometimes see how your comments could be misconstrued and then things can get a bit ,er difficult.
To avoid that I alter as soon as I can so plead guilty .
But a valid point , Mart.
Viktoria.

[Erato]

I think the machine gun approach - numerous small posts sent in rapid succession - is generally taken by those who take RootsChat to be a competitive sport.  The goal is to overwhelm the 'opposition.'  I don't even bother to participate on threads where that is happening.  While I'm trying to compose a coherent post that takes into account several censuses and other records, someone else has engaged in a rapid blitzkrieg of mini-posts.

[Andrew Tarr]

If we are joining in with our little pet annoyances, I might add those people who rather unnecessarily add two or three column inches to all their posts, just telling us all the families they are interested in or connected with.  I'm sure it could be done more economically, especially if they post several times in one thread .... 

[JenB]

If we are joining in with our little pet annoyances, I might add those people who rather unnecessarily add two or three column inches to all their posts, just telling us all the families they are interested in or connected with.  I'm sure it could be done more economically, especially if they post several times in one thread .... 

That's easily dealt with. Go to your profile/look and layout then check 'Don't show users' signatures' and you won't see them any more. You also can do the same thing with avatars. I've got them both turned off.