@nukeador I cannot edit the original post anymore.
Is there some kind of time limit to post edits?
Yes,
- 24 hour for a user with trust level 0 and 1
- 1 month for users of trust level 2
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I see, this might be a problem to keep discussion ordered.
In Using the forum as the main discussion platform for tagging I meant to use the first post to provide a summary and a list of correlated topics (such as this one).
This removes the ability to do so.
How would you go about doing that? Could this be a better solution than maintaining a curated list in the first post?
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Getting to trust level 2 is not too complex:
Get to trust level 2 by…
- Visiting at least 15 days, not sequentially
- Casting at least 1 like
- Receiving at least 1 like
- Replying to at least 3 different topics
- Entering at least 20 topics
- Reading at least 100 posts
- Spend a total of 60 minutes reading posts
Also you can ask mods to turn a topic into wiki mode where anyone with TL1 can edit.
Anyone with TL1 can create and append tags to a topic, so I would use something like rfc-cycling in all related topics. This would allow you to link them all (and get notifications on new ones) in one step.
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it is quite creepy that Discourse tracks things like this. Is it feasible to disable it serverside?
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This is apparently public information as well, I can find the time you’ve been reading through the forum on your profile.
and it doesn’t work if you use the mailing list mode
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Restrictions should be applied only when needed and on actual cases where it is needed. Applying such restrictions ‘a priori’ is just message to us that we are idiots that need to be controlled. This just reduces usablity and complicates organizing content.
Let people be and freely communicate and contribute. If someone makes problems, handle that person. Requirement for category to be opened is that there are three moderators appointed. That is more than enough to handle people who behave oddly.
That is my opinion based on 30 years of actively participation in administering mail lists, newsgroups, forums, and various social media sites.
I hope that there is no option to also automatically close topic after some time.
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In my opinion, the edit time limit should be removed. I can see no good reason for it but many against.
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My understanding on edit time limit defaults is that it protects from a spam technique that consists in posting normal messages for a while and after sometime edit them to include spam, this will pass unnoticed since the topics are not bumped.
If editing a topics for longer than 1 month is something that is often needed, moderators can be asked to turn the topic into a wiki message (so it was always be edited).
Alternatively TL2 post edit time can be increased or unlimited.
I would avoid modifying the TL0 and TL1 restrictions to keep this spam protection I mentioned in place.
I think this should be done.
Is this really needed? Has spam been a big problem in the old forum? Could we try without and put it back in place when needed? Because people using the forums mainly via email are discriminated against by this rule.
This is a known spam attack vector for many Discourse forums, that’s why TL0 and TL1 have this limitation. Accounts are created, a few normal messages are posted and then after a while edited to include spam links.
Is it possible to register for this forum without an OpenStreetMap account? And if it is, could we disable it? This would be an obstacle for spammers.
You need an OSM account, that’s the only way to login.
Even with that we have seen a few suspicious accounts logging in to the forums, because I suspect spammers are actively targeting OSM too.
If you use the forums via email, you don’t really need the advantages of TL2, because they only apply to web ui actions (like edit). If you often need to edit from the web ui, then you’ll get TL2 easily.
Getting to trust level 2 is not too complex:
Get to trust level 2 by…
- Visiting at least 15 days, not sequentially
- Reading at least 100 posts
- Spend a total of 60 minutes reading posts
Does this include people who read via email? Each email often has links to images. If your email client loads then, then the discourse software could track that. I presume not, but it would be good to check
(I also agree that it’s a little creepy)
I’ve asked and it seems emails don’t count as reading. In any case, as I mentioned, TL2 additional rights are related to the web ui actions, something a person interacting via email won’t use.
This is not correct for a user who usually replies per e-mail and only wants to use the web interface for occasionally editing a post.
I feel we are talking about very rare use case, how many people who use the forum only using email need to edit posts after 24hs?
If this is something occasionally then a mod can help this person edit the post or turn it into a wiki so it can be edited as many times as possible.
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