I think that there are lots of valid reasons for editing, as I will explain at our 2 PM meeting. No, 3 PM meeting! No, the meeting is cancelled. Beyond people trying to obfuscate their opinions, factual information doers often change. Most edits are made, I am willing to speculate, for reasons of spelling and/or grammar. My eyesight has gotten really bad, so it takes me a lot more effort lately to type with correct spelling and punctuation. And even still lots of mistakes make it through for me to edit later.
For an example of a community with no editing at all, see FetLife. Where people often need to add a post just to correct a misspelled word.
There is an easy way to allow both the efficiency and clarity of editing, as well as the transparency needed to eliminate “edit trolling” - and that is to make the edits visible. Users who opt for visible edits can have their edits shown when one clicks upon the little pencil image at the top right. I opine that edits should always be visible. Then I can see if a person is trying to clarify or obfuscate their remarks.
Why I suppose that many don’t do this on BB is that sometimes people use the feature to retract a post or statement which they don’t want seen. Sometimes this may be prudent, but I think it would be better if they can delete their post or flag it for deletion.
Another issue is that if the forum is to be a safe space for people to discuss issues and opinions, this means taking steps to ensure that people are not attacked for voicing their opinions. When people are mature enough to be able to agree to disagree, then they are more likely to be clear and not troll. Some participants quickly resort to making personal remarks about those whose opinions they find objectionable. But “trolling” (as I understand it) does not mean that a person’s actual views are deserving of opprobrium, rather I understand the term to mean that they being deceitful in the expression of their views.
It requires, I think, the self-discipline and awareness to distinguish between different kinds of acceptance and tolerance. For example, of one cannot “accept racism” as being an existing reality, then one cannot effectively do anything about it. But accepting its history and biases as existing is not the same as agreeing with the content or methods behind racist actions or ideologies - accepting it as valid. This is a degree of semantic indexing which is necessary for nuanced discussion, but which not everybody always has patience for.
A participant in one of these discussions, as a member of this community, is a partner. And as a partner I feel obliged to help them to clarify and understand their own positions, views, opinions. Even if I suspect that I might disagree with them.
