A proposed change to store real revisions for large edits made during the grace period has been discussed. sam suggested introducing a grace_period_edits_max_chars_changed setting with a default value of 30, to prevent “ninja edits” and protect users from accidental changes. However, codinghorror expressed concerns about the potential impact on users who frequently make extensive edits during the grace period.
After clarifying the proposal, sam emphasized that the goal is to create a proper revision for large edits, not to prevent edits. The change has been implemented with a default value of 20 characters, but codinghorror increased it to 100. Some users, including jomaxro, raised concerns about the potential for spam and suggested keeping the Disable edit grace period for TL0 users by default feature.
Ultimately, sam decided to make the feature available only for TL1 and above users, with a default value of 100 characters, to minimize disruption to high-trust users. codinghorror suggested having two settings, one for TL0/1 and one for higher trust users, which could resolve concerns about mistakes and spam. The feature has been implemented, and sam noted that it is now available.
I think a very awesome change would be to calculate “amount of diff” prior to deciding if an edit requires storage of a real revision or not.
If you changed 5 letters in a post, sure it can be a “grace period” edit with no revision stored. If you deleted 10 paragraphs it should never be considered a “grace period edit” and a revision should be stored.
I suggest:
grace_period_edits_max_chars_changed default to: 30
Any larger changes deserve to be tracked anyway and can be vectors for abuse, so this would be a great change on 2 levels.
It protects end users from “mistake” nuking own post with a ninja edit (cause a revision will be stored)
It protects the community from “bad actors” that abuse ninja edits and starts surfacing them.
I would wait to see how often this happens again.. because I think there is significant risk in what you are describing. I don’t want to do a knee-jerk “bad thing happened once, therefore radical change” response on this.
As for abuse, that will be handled by TL0 not getting ANY grace period on edits.
So that is a non issue at the moment. I am the type of poster who makes a LOT of grace period edits, so your proposed change to save yourself one mistake one time, would really screw me over.
Sounds like a good idea though i do think the default limit of 30 might be a bit high. 30 characters could completely change the meaning or point of a post with no edit history. Why not something closer to 10-15? that would allow room for the occasional missed word or bad spelling without much room for post changing edits
You can change the meaning of a post with a three character change. This isn’t about highlighting “change of meaning”, it’s to prevent accidents and abuse.
I am not married to 20 chars, just feel that in general it is enough. I would like to deploy to BBS and look at the resulting revisions 24h later. If you want to push it to 30 or 40 we can.
Wait…if we’re increasing this setting to 100 (or even more) I think we still need the Disable edit grace period for TL0 users by default feature. 100 characters is plenty of room for a user to turn a valid post into spam, add an inappropriate image, etc. without triggering an edit log.