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Legitrain

I make a lot of mistakes while role playing while in pm . What about an editor for pm role plays. Sorry if it is a stupid idea.
That sounds like an awesome idea. :D I would like this too. It might be hard though....
I've been wanting that ability for awhile. >.> Been figuring there must be some reason it hasn't been added after all this time.
Legitrain Topic Starter

It might be complicated to something like that.
Yeah, it's a little frustrating if you go into perfectionist mode when proof reading your post, and realize you missed a single letter AS your clicking "Add Reply." XD
Sanne Moderator

It's unlikely that it's complicated to make it editable for Kim, it's more that the way PMs work right now allows for efficient moderating and keeping track of things, for both members and mods alike.

If PMs become editable, the issue is that someone can harass you, then when you report that person they can edit their PM and then there's no way for Kim to be able to tell who said what. This also ties in with mods writing to members about something and the members being rude to them. PMs can NEVER be altered so PMs are 100% solid proof of a member's behavior, and can be logged indefinitely for that reason. (Note: I know that some sites utilize a feature that backs up previous versions of altered messages, but I can see this becoming an unnecessary burden on the server and being a confusing interface for members to plow through)

Plus I think it would become hugely confusing if people took advantage of such a feature and started erasing embarrassing messages before someone got the chance to read the PM etc.

In short, I think the pros are severely outweighed by the cons. We have one of the best communities on the internet but that doesn't exempt the site from having a couple of troublemakers every now and then. I know that having solid PMs as backup when members insisted otherwise has been more than beneficial to the mods before and I'm confident it will continue to be that way.
Kim Site Admin

I guess in my mind, PMs are the RPR equivalent of email, and that establishes certain behavioral expectations. By that I mean that an email is not "communal property" in terms of its handling. Once it is sent, the copy the receiver got "belongs" to them, in that:
  • They can put it into a folder to organize it the way that makes sense for them, but the sender's copy doesn't get moved. And vice versa.
  • They can delete their copy, but the sender can still keep theirs.
  • They can save their copy even if the sender deletes theirs.
  • They can hold on to the email as evidence, whether that be evidence they were given permission to do something or evidence they were harassed or evidence a price was agreed on.

You'll notice that this is essentially the exact opposite of a forum post. A forum post is always organized onto the same "folder" (forum) for everyone. When it's deleted, it's deleted for everyone. When it's edited, it's edited for everyone, etc. etc. There are pros and cons to both approaches, and I sort of like that we have both available to us.

Over the years we have learned that uneditable paper-trails do matter in really serious harassment situations or similar, as private behavior is often dramatically worse than public behavior when dealing with a harasser. This is a fairly rare case and I'm not really making the argument the entire user-base should suffer for it, but it is definitely part of the mix.

To me, it is a little confusing and unexpected to have PMs mimic email but allow for editing, like letting someone have the keys to my house and telling them where the box is that I keep all the important/sentimental letters that I've received over the years so they can go over them with a sharpie. It breaks my expectation that the copy I received is a copy I can rely on having and storing in the way that makes the most sense to me, to preserve the flow of a conversation as it actually happened.

Sanne wrote:
(Note: I know that some sites utilize a feature that backs up previous versions of altered messages, but I can see this becoming an unnecessary burden on the server and being a confusing interface for members to plow through)

A backup of all versions of every message is the middle-ground, that lets us have our cake and eat it too. It's also likely to balloon our database costs just as you say, pretty quickly.

I know how many times I can edit a single forum post, correcting an apostrophe in one edit, a letter in another, a line break in another... And a copy of that message would be saved in its entirety every time. We'd need a bigger server in very short order!
Legitrain Topic Starter

It's all understandable. It was more along the lines of wishful thinking. It must be crappy to try , and understand some of my pms.
My phone corrected the word began and made it into Bryan. It made the word took in to told . Kim has made an amazing site and it is prefect the way it is .
You can turn off the auto-correct on most phones while still being able to check its spelling (by selecting it, on the iPhone at least), so I'm certain! What sort of phone are you using? Maybe we can look up how to turn its auto-correct function off, so you won't have any weird word switches while you're posting things to the site.
Kim Site Admin

Legitrain wrote:
It made the word took in to told . Kim has made an amazing site and it is prefect the way it is .

Thank you for saying so, but I will be the first to admit there are areas that need work! <3 :D
Legitrain Topic Starter

I phone 5s . I just got it not sure on how to do most things on it . Your welcome.
I think I will look that up thank you for the idea.

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