Forum Discussion
forums tech : possible to edit comments ?
On the StackExchange family of sites , it's possible to edit a comment for some short period of time ( 5 mins I think ) after it is originally entered.
Is it possible to add this functionality to these forums
The problem is that often with comments the formatting displays not as expected.
Which brings up another question : is there a page that lays out the tech rules for this forum ?
We're adding in editing of comments but I'm not sure about a preview capability because comments are meant to be small and succinct with no line breaks (hence little formatting and ideally no line breaks).
We're also adding a series of moderation facilities so moderators can control the flow of a question, e.g. convert a hijacked thread answer to a new question, convert answer to comment, etc. This will help future visitors get a better handle on the information presented.
You may also have noticed that there is a "subscribe to future answers on this question" next to the answer reply. Originally as a respondent, you only received updates on comments for your answer but this has been changed for those wanting all replies to have an option to do so.
We do also know there are some formatting issues, especially when using any markup that is not enclosed in a code section (please use this where possible!). Added to this, we want to auto-link urls that have not already been linked.
A complete guide for formatting can be found in the upper right hand corner of the text editor under "how to format" or via the direct link here.
- Scott : the formatting guidelines at the link you provide don't seem to work for comments. I tried backticks ( hi-lite and format as code ), and double-underscore ( bold ), and neither works. I suspect none of the formatting works. Is a fix for this in the works ?
- Comment editing was added today. Nice work Scott!
BaltoStar, Good suggestion and yes these are both things we're looking into for an upcoming dot release of the new Q&A on DevCentral. Also wondering if you think adding the preview feature from an answer be valuable for comments?
- I've made a new answer to the preview capability on comments on this question as I'm not sure it's warranted on what are supposed to be short succinct comments. Providing more information should go in either the attached answer or question.
- Good feedback, thanks guys.
boneyardMVP
thumbs up for both ideas. it might also be a good idea to have a general idea thread or such. im starting to like the new setup but it was quite shakey at first.
