This might be a dumb question but I'm asking it anyway....When you

[glarius]

edit your message...is it REALLY necessary to type edit: and then an explanation of why you edited it?....I find that a pain in the ass and just wonder... what's the reason for it?....It's a lot easier if you just do your edit and be done with it... :shrug:

[rock]

1. Er, OK

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. It's a courtesy thing

Since people can see that you've edited, they will be wondering what was there before, and what's there now - Did he completely change his tone? Did he change his mind? Was it something sneaky? Underhanded?

By saying why you edited, it continues the trust level and communication we hold so dear at DU.

[glarius]

5. Are you serious?.....Most of the time it's a misspelled word or a word

left out....It just seems a lot of trouble for nothing to me...It wouldn't even occur to me to be suspicious of an edit that was not explained....Oh well....

[Rabrrrrrr]

12. Yes, I AM INDEED serious

It's a courtesy thing.

Yes, usually a mispelled word or grammar fix. But it's just plain good community to let people know what you've done.

[catpower2000]

3. It's not an official rule...

My understanding is that people do it to be honest. For example, if I posted a thread in GD that said "Candidate X has sex with donkeys!" and then a bunch of people replied "you're an idiot!" and then I went back and edited to read "Candidate X loves flowers", then all the replies look stupid.

So I think people do it to explain why they were messing with their post, in case people are replying to it. I've seen it on other boards as well.

Cat

[glarius]

8. O.K....I can see your point...that makes sense. (still a pain tho...ha ha)

:)

[monkeyboy]

15. And it's a great way to change the original post to CYA

If people don't like my post, I just go back and change it completely, then put an 'edit explanation' in, saying I mis-spelled something. Drives 'em crazy every time. Moo hoo hoo ha ha ha ha!

On edit: misspelled 'Moo'.
On edit: misspelled 'hoo'.
On edit: misspelled 'ha'.

[rbnyc]

4. The reason I do it...

...is so that people won't wonder if I changed the content in such a way that would negate pre-edit replies, and so that people will know that it's not necessary to re-read my post if they read an earlier version if all I corrected was a typo.

[Droopy]

6. It's not necessary

I and I think most people who do it do so just as a courtesy and so everyone knows why you edited. As in, did you change the content or just fix some typos?

[Aristus]

7. I concur with the above. Simple courtesy, that's all.

*

[glarius]

9. Thanks everyone....I guess you've convinced me!!!

:D

[kimchi]

10. Is it necessary?

o fpm
y lmpe.

on edit: I don't know.

[RobinA]

11. I Don't Do It

and I don't plan to. It's a pain and I'm not going to feed the paranoids. If somebody wants to think I did something underhanded (I have no idea what underhanded thing I could do to a forum post), I say let them. Life's too short to sweat this sort of thing.

[Blue_Chill]

13. I never do that

Nor do I care when others do it. To each his/her own.

[tjdee]

14. If it's a typo I don't explain.

If it's grammar or something minor, I don't explain. I figure people see 'edit', and know that I *edited*.

If I change my mind, or alter the content significantly, I explain so that replies aren't confusing.