Hey @k00b, this weekend I was noodling on an idea: what if there was a type of post that you could edit in perpetuity? The use case was trying to build up content where simpler things accrue to more complex things. The most straightforward way I could think of to do that is to just have a running note that can change as things evolve ("here's topic x as it stands right now") perhaps with some kind of versioning where you could see topic x evolving over time. [1]
I can roll my own version of this, of course -- every time topic x changes I could make a new post that re-aggregates my thinking on topic x; and then manually add a link to the last version, sort of like re-implementing git with hyperlinks and no hash signatures. But now I have to update the links of all references that may exist to topic x which is a pita. Plus I may not even control those references -- they could be someone else's links, or on another site, or whatever. Plus if I make a lot of changes then it would spam the feed w/ topic x updates; and maybe people would just learn to tune me out even faster than they naturally would.
Basically, the underlying point is that this would make it less frictiony for a different type of content to emerge. I can see some downsides, so it seems like it would matter to make this type of thing visually different from a normal SN post so that people knew what kind of thing that they were seeing, but that seems not too hard. The upside, potentially, is that SN could represent different and perhaps richer interaction paradigms. It seems like conversations could accrue in a way that's hard, now.
It's also possible that I could demonstrate the value for this by doing it the hard way and seeing if it's as useful in practice as it seems to be in theory. But I figured maybe I'd open the idea for public discussion first. Anyone have feedback on this use case?
[1] This is quite close to how the bio pages work, I think, minus the change history.
This would be incredibly useful for blogging on SN, especially for posters like @siggy47 and myself via @lain (if I get off my ass and find some time to write, lol) if updates to longform content are deemed necessary.
Some of the suggestions here, including making permanently editable posts cost more to publish (and maybe even revise), are good to establish middle ground with this type of thing.
It just needs to be done correctly, with edit history and reasons being absolute priority.
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Someone I forget who had been discussing the idea of incrementally increasing cost to edit over time which I like
So perhaps a post that's a month old could be edited, but the cost to do so would be much greater, perhaps enough to discourage unless the edit was that important
although, i do personally enjoy the permanence of it as well.
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Probably wasn’t the first and won’t be the last, but my comment was buried in a daily thread a few weeks back, for additional context.
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Yes! This is what I was reading haha
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I like giving new things a go, but couldn't someone abuse this though...
If I've got it right, couldn't a troublemaker could write gushingly about Bitcoin, get lots of comments and do the ol' switcheroo and it looks like someone like Darth has been giving Doge the thumbs up.
If I'm right, it could cause a lot of trouble. Lots of Rickrolls too.
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In your use case, only the poster could do it. Nobody could rug-pull Darth except Darth.
But could a bad actor do a misleading switcheroo on his own content? I suppose so, in theory. In practice, would anyone bother? Maybe. What could happen in response? Well, there would be the edit history demonstrating his bad actor-ness.
But yes, I think you could come up with a situation where something you didn't like would happen.
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It takes a joker like me to realise the possibilities of this - and someone like me would play merry hell with this.
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I'm kinda agree with this, but also we can go on a slippery slope. I think at least we should keep comments non-editable after 10min, but main posts, yeas, could be handy sometimes.
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I wonder if making them cost more than normal posts would alleviate people's concerns.
Also, if you don't want these posts to reenter the feed every time you update, it seems like people aren't going to see them. Although, maybe we'll just make more use of our bookmarks.
I think this is a promising idea.
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Bookmarks could be a dark horse. Right now my bookmarks are basically write-only; I've never actually used them on any platform. Maybe this could drive that use case.
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I don't personally see the value.
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why?? non-editable after those 10 min is way better.. you can always delete...
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Bro I just wrote 300 words about why.
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i mean valid reasons...
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Why do you think it's better? I'm not sure how I feel myself. Sometimes I think 10 mins is too short.
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It's for a different type of utterance, that is meant to capture a bigger and more evolving topic, not just small changes to wording or syntax, which is what the edit window currently affords. If I say something about topic x now, and then learn about it for the next month and evolve my perspective, there is still a thing called topic x, but the concept is now different. That's conceptually distinct from a post t1 followed later by t2.
The point isn't that you can't post t1 and then t2, where t2 reflects all the current information; and perhaps later, a t3. The point is that this evolving-info-about-a-topic construct is viewed differently by people than a post is, and so perhaps it should be treated differently than a post, just as a comment is a different kind of thing than a post, and there is a fundamental abstraction in the system that recognizes that.
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I agree that would be great. It would foster much more in depth conversation. How would you deal with the evergreen issue? How would it get visibility? Obviously you couldn't piggyback off of the original sats to achieve a top post position.
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Evergreen-ness is the main aspect that I'm trying to unlock here, but you raise a good point about discovery. Not sure what the right thing to do on that one would be. There's been some talk about lists in previous Saloon discussions, that might be an aspect of it.
Or just have a "ranking window" where only sats earned since the last update (or an update milestone, e.g., once a day or something) are considered for ranking purposes. But you're right, it's non-trivial.
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Stackers could individually subscribe to this new type post, but then of course the audience would be limited.
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i get you.. makes sense, but does one have to check a changelog just to follow your evolution? saying shit happens and one evolves, but does one have to worry about change the posted oppinion on the interwebs just to justify his own ignorance in the past? too much hassle i guess
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I figured the changelog was more a hedge vs bad actors, e.g., someone who says a bunch of stuff including controversial statement c and then edits it out later. I don't imagine that, in practice, people would use the changelog for anything real, just like they don't on Wikipedia.
Actually, the Wikipedia model is kind of the right vibe. You can see how tortured this gets on Twitter, where accumulating knowledge about something can only happen in a thread, because Twitter doesn't support an abstraction that gets at the use case people are trying to express. Twitter doesn't care, bc it's not trying to be a place where real discussion can happen, or knowledge can grow.
Whether this is the right thing for SN or not is an open question. I think I would use it, and I think it would let interesting new forms of community emerge. But who can say for sure without trying it.
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you can always delete and repost... But going back to perpetuity and hope for a change log will be a mess
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I find it dangerous. And I don't think SN is a wiki, but rather a current news and discussion place.
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It could be dangerous, for some definitions of dangerous. The key question is whether it gets you something good to offset the theoretical danger.
And I don't think SN is a wiki, but rather a current news and discussion place.
I think SN is whatever it turns out to be. Which sounds like I'm being flippant, but I'm not. If the SN peeps want it to be exactly what HN is, except with zapping, that's one vision, and this idea wouldn't fit. If they have a more expansive idea of what online community could be, that would suggest different things.
I'm not sure if they have a commitment to any particular paradigm. That would be another key question.
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