RESTORE our ability to EDIT our own IDEAS- with Dell Moderation!

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RESTORE our ability to EDIT our own IDEAS- with Dell Moderation!

380 points posted to IdeaStorm by phubert Mar 12

Dell folk:

Did you ANNOUNCE that you were REMOVING the ability for submitters to EDIT their submissions???

When did THIS disappear??????

phubert Mar 12	Haven't we gone through this before? Is it a BUG???
kara_k Mar 12	@phubert: We did announce via the Mod Blog yesterday about the changes. You can read the details here.
jervis961 Mar 12	Yes phubert they did announce it but did not add the "new" icon until today.
jervis961 Mar 12	So why not disable editing of comments as well?
jackie_c Mar 12	@jervis: Comments do not necessarily change the just of the idea; therefore, we left it :) When you vote, you vote on the idea itself. Comments do help get a better understanding, but this is not what is actually voted on.
jervis961 Mar 12	Why can't we edit our votes then if we make a mistake? Should we hit report abuse and ask for it to be changed?
winoffice Mar 12	Yes jervis961, this is a real annoyance. They say that they are removing the ability to edit ideas to "provide some stability to the community's voting". And to edit I have to click "Report abuse" every time. And how can I specify what to edit and how with only 10 words???????????????? Why should they have to remove the ability to edit???????????????? They should just allow changing a vote instead. That way, a person could edit an idea and, if one's opinion changed on the idea, then he could always change his vote. But here, we cannot edit ideas AND we cannot change our votes. Why should I have to hit "report abuse" every time I have to edit???????????????? Is it not easier to just allow changing votes? Again I am angry with Dell and with everyone on the IdeaStorm team (sorry if I seem to be offensive, but this is true) :-@!
phubert Mar 13	Well, Jackie and all, I'd like to see the "Report Abuse" link under the story title changed to, say, "Request Moderator Attention", since clearly "Report abuse" no longer encompasses the function. So, if we wish to rewrite an idea BASED ON comments, as more than one of us have in the past, do we have to simply submit a NEW suggestion???
phubert Mar 13	Jackie, TEN WORDS is hardly enough to specify an edit of the submission!!!! More so, when even the FORMAT might need changing!
phubert Mar 13	And, one reason given for not allowing changes is that they might change the voters choices... well if we were ABLE to CHANGE OUR VOTES, as we have asked AGAIN and AGAIN, that wouldn't BE an issue!!!!!
jervis961 Mar 13	Also once you "report abuse" the button no longer functions. Make sure you get it right the second time(1st time being when you posted the idea). :)
jackie_c Mar 13	I know the report abuse line is not that long; however, I believe most of you know how to get in touch with me if you need something. And hitting report abuse would be the same as hitting edit idea, so shouldn't be that big of a change.
jmxz Mar 13	@jackie_c: "Comments do not necessarily change the just of the idea ... When you vote, you vote on the idea itself. Comments do help get a better understanding, but this is not what is actually voted on." I've been on here quite frequently and have never once seen a case where someone editing an idea changed it's meaning. On the other hand, merges pretty frequently change the meanings of ideas to the degree that I and many other people have stated that they would want to change votes. You can search the ideas for 'unmerge' to see cases where this happens. How about enable editing again until it becomes a real problem (like merges) instead of a hypothetical one.
jackie_c Mar 14	@jmxz: I have not been on here that long and I have seen people change the text in their idea after it gets voted up. There are even comments on some saying this.
jmxz Mar 14	[looking through archives] - OK. the one episode I can find was in late June, early July of '07 where a few people deleted the text of most of their ideas in protest of not getting any responses. Are there other cases? Surely that's not as misleading as the totally different ideas that get merged occasionally, like request for software getting merged with requests for hardware; or where Ideas related to pricing for spec upgrades (like the former Idea #68520) gets merged into one more about the language skills of customer support (Idea 61894); or the case where Novell/SuSE Linux ideas (which quite a few linux advocates vote against) get merged into Ubuntu ideas which they voted for.
winoffice Mar 14	Merged Idea originally posted Mar 14 Moderators: BRING BACK the ability to EDIT OUR IDEAS! OK I understand that something is necessary to prevent malicious edits. But moderators, you must understand that most edits are NOT maliciously intended. If an edit causes an opinion or two to change, then just allow changing votes and it would NOT be an issue. But here, you allow NEITHER editing ideas NOR changing votes - why???? By removing the ability of editing ideas you are also removing the following. 1. One of the (now former) main benefits of IdeaStorm - the (previously existing) ability to turn what might now be good ideas into what might become great ideas. 2. The ability to correct mistakes or to update information. Sure the "Report abuse." function can be used, but I find it to be worse than the "Edit idea" link that previously existed. First how do you expect 10 words to be enough???? If I had at most 10 words, then I would probably have to type my message so vaguely that the moderators would not understand at all. Second it is just annoying to have to ask the moderators every time I want to edit. Instead of completely removing the ability to edit, a better solution would be what I proposed in the first paragraph: keep the ability to edit, and if an opinion or two changes after an edit, then just allow users to change their votes and it would not be an issue.
aikiwolfie Mar 14	Merged Comment originally posted Mar 14 Not being able to edit ideas can be annoying. But on the plus side maybe people will put more effort into them. Draft it up in OpenOffice of MS Office first. Spell and grammar check it. Then copy & paste.
dwood Mar 16	Merged Idea originally posted Mar 15 Where did Edit my idea go? I was trying to edit my idea and then I realized that while I was on a hiatus, the edit topic option has been removed! We want that back!
sugarbear Mar 16	Merged Comment originally posted Mar 15 Go to D2D and click on Ideastorm on the right. It explains it there.
winoffice Mar 16	Merged Comment originally posted Mar 15 The moderators like to think that all edits are maliciously intended. They obviously do not want to understand that most edits are not maliciously intended, but rather are used to enhance ideas and to correct errors.
winoffice Mar 16	Merged Comment originally posted Mar 15 Those of you who demoted, explain why. After all, you will be able to use this on your own ideas!
phubert Mar 17	Indeed, WO, I have revised submissions based on the thread of comments. And, I'm sure my perspective runs somewhat contrary to that of the Dell mods, but, as many should know by now, I view a "suggestion" as more a "provocation to discussion" than as a static request to Dell.
bbr Mar 17	Would be nice if we had like 10 minutes after posting to fix typos at least.
jervis961 Mar 17	I think I'm partially to blame for this. In the past I have added to the title of one of my front page ideas to call attention to the lack of participation from Dell(I changed it back after things improved). I have mentioned several times that someone could really embarrass Dell by making a front page idea into something different. I even deleted the wording from many ideas in protest to people being wronged on the site(I returned them to normal after a few days). I also pointed out that someone with an idea posted in the first few days of this site could change it into something resembling a popular idea and then try to get the popular idea merged into their own to steal the points. I have also added onto ideas to incorporate things that have come up in the comments but do not radically change the idea like an added option to specs of a proposed laptop. Another problem caused by editing is that you lose your status tag when you edit an idea. Those are some of the reasons they turned off the edit function, I hope it wasn't just because of me tbut who knows. Unfortunately now I can no longer add to my IdeaStorm tip section idea that they linked to in the about section. I guess I can report abuse and type a a long explanation of what has changed and hope she gets it correct. I guess I can hope she knows HTML well enough to correct any mistakes I make posting pictures, links or whatnot. Wouldn't it have been better to leave the edit button and have you submit all the changes as usual only they wouldn't show on the site until they are reviewed by a mod?
phubert Mar 17	Yes, making the EDIT function a moderator-approved one would also work. And, would actually SAVE effort BY the moderators as _they_ wouldn't have to enter the actual edits!
jmxz Mar 17	Also, editing some ideas helps preserve the meaning while prohibiting editing ends up distorting it. For example, consider the Ideas like "Put Ubuntu on higher-end hardware (nVidia 8000 series graphics, and at least Intel's Conroe/E6750 CPUs)" might have been a viable idea when ideastorm launched, but the example hardware referenced could certainly not be considered higher-end anymore. To preserve the meaning of the idea you'd need to edit it to say "nVidia 9000" and "Intel's Penryn / T9500". In a few months you'd probably need to edit the example again to say Yorkfield. Same for software. Consider the ideas that say that Windows should be patched to the most-recent service pack when shipped. If that idea gives an example of the latest service pack, it'd need updating too.
phubert Mar 17	Dell-Admins: MERGE this with the following: http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/10079113/Proposed_change_to_editing_our...
jmxz Mar 17	No, don't merge it. I support this one, not the other one. How would my vote be counted? I didn't notice any actual abuse based on the ability to edit ideas - so why not just re-enable it. With no actual abuse, pretty much any work in this area could be better spent on more useful features. If someone wanted to address the underlying issue, perhaps better if every idea had a visible history (like wikipedia. That way refinements and improvements to ideas could still happen; and if abuse occurred it could be easily restored; and when someone reports abuse there'd be an audit trail to see the history.
jackie_c Mar 17	@phubert: Do you still want the merge or would you like me to leave it?
phubert Mar 17	Well, if jmxz wants this kept, retain it.
dwood Mar 17	jmz makes an even better point.
phubert Mar 18	In other words, Dell 'fixed' a problem that didn't actually need fixing, by significantly limiting participants' control over the course of their own ideas. Yes, dwood, jmxz gets to the crux of it. And, I agree with him. It would be easiest to simply re-enable the edit function. Seems Dell, in this, is trying to emulate the government in its labyrinth of regulations that, seemingly, as often as not, cause harm rather than help.
jmxz Mar 18	And not only was it merely a hypothetical problem that seems to have just happened once many months ago - they already had good mechanisms for dealing with it ---- when people abuse such a feature (by defacing their ideas) rather than using it correctly (by refining and clarifying the idea as comments are posted) Dell could have simply banned the users in the same way they banned users for other TOS violations.
winoffice Mar 18	I agree with hillsborospartans. Dell should remove editing (but only temporarily, maybe 60 days) only for THOSE users which actually abuse the editing feature. But why should the REST of us lose the feature????????????????
phubert Mar 19	The problem here, I suspect, is that this software doesn't have the capacity to attach FUNCTION profiles to user accounts! If, indeed, ANY sort of meaningful profile at all!
jmxz Mar 19	@hillsborospartans: I still don't see the need for a new feature. If someone's abusing _any_ feature (including defacing ideas by abusing the editing feature) just ban the whole user for a while. Just taking away editing does nothing to stop the defacement of the site; since they can always resort to misusing other features instead (random voting; or deliberately voting up bad ideas comes to mind; as does posting a lot of useless comments like this one that mostly just have the effect of distracting Dell from the top rated ideas).
jmxz Mar 19	Selectively disabling certain accounts from one particular capability (editing) sounds like it'd be a new feature in ideastorm's software. Banning users totally meets the needs and is something we already known they can do with the existing software.
aikiwolfie Mar 19	I'd go for banning rather than hammering everybody. It's how this sort of thing would be dealt with on other forums. Dells mods and admins really need to spend a bit of time on other popular forums to see how things are done there.
jmxz Mar 19	@hillsborospartans: "Whats so bad with new features on the software?" It's where they're choosing to spend their limited resources. They've got actual problems - like a search feature that is almost entirely broken as shown by ideas like these: http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/75108 http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/63392 http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/74542 http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/66793 http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/76246 http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/73423 and more. But instead of addressing these high-demand features, they're implementing features that address hypothetical problems while decreasing the usability of the site. In fact, they implement the very opposite of ideas that are voted up by rather large margins: www.ideastorm.com/article/show/73430/Dont_totally_disable_editing_ideas< they should read the IdeaStorm category of Ideas and look at which of those ideas are voted up before implementing things.
aikiwolfie Mar 19	Yep got to love that search feature. I like it most when you create a new idea and it tells you similar ideas already exist and then shows you something totally different! Quality software Dell used for this forum. No expense spared. ;o)
jervis961 Mar 20	Lately I've been getting the same 3 ideas as possible matches, over and over.
aikiwolfie Mar 20	LOL maybe your stuck in groundhog day :op
programatix Apr 4	Merged Idea originally posted Apr 3 Let us edit our own post If I remember correctly, previously we were able to edit/delete our post. Why take that away from us? Sometimes there are spelling mistakes or ect that we want to change.
jmxz Apr 4	Merged Comment originally posted Apr 3 @programatix: "If I remember correctly, previously we were able to edit/delete our post. " Yeah - and as far as I can tell it's only been abused once in over a year. @programatix: "Why take that away from us? " Perhaps they're trying to decrease usability until we all tire of this and go away so they can wrap the whole thing up?
millhauz Apr 4	Merged Comment originally posted Apr 4 Yeah, they could save money by shutting down ideastorm and layoff even more people.... or better, we can pay them for the privilege of helping them, monthly membership fee anyone?
jervis961 Apr 4	Merged Comment originally posted Apr 4 Sounds like a bargain, you know some people do pay do get abused. :D
programatix Apr 4	Merged Comment originally posted Apr 4 So, just curious, how was IdeaStorm abused that caused Dell to stop letting us edit the our post?
jmxz Apr 4	Merged Comment originally posted Apr 4 @programatix: Long ago some guy got frustrated that no one responded to his ideas, and replaced the Title and Text with a few random characters each. Occasionally people mention that they could hypothetically get an idea voted up, and then replace the body with a worse idea - though AFAICT that never happened yet. Both problems would be better fixed by letting users see the "history" of an idea.
programatix Apr 4	Merged Comment originally posted Apr 4 Agreed.
jervis961 Apr 4	Merged Comment originally posted Apr 4 I don't recall exactly jmxz but I think there were 2 instances. I know I put my ideas up for deletion in protest for how Dell was incorrectly merging, deleting and not treating everyone equally. I think it was badblood who was being abused and he may have altered his ideas as well. There was one other time that I edited one of my idea on the front page to add to the title how Dell was not communicating or tagging ideas. After they started to participate again I changed the title back. This was what, almost a year ago. I cannot recall any other ways that it was abused and even my abuse was not malicious but done to get Dell to actually participate in the site. Everything was returned to normal afterward. Perhaps there are things Dell hasn't told us about?
jmxz Apr 4	@jervis961: "Perhaps there are things Dell hasn't told us about?" Considering how long some of the obscene-troll-postings stayed up (back when people posted such stuff to see if Dell was still around) I have a feeling we would have noticed faster than they would have, no? I didn't consider your edits abuse - since they didn't negatively impact the site, nor mislead users, and since you reverted them.
jervis961 Apr 4	OK just checking. Which one are we talking about? I either forgot about it or didn't see it.
jmxz Apr 4	I was talking about the guy (badblood? I could check some archives :-) if it matters ) who wiped out all his ideas.
jervis961 Apr 4	OK, he hasn't been around in a while now. I think you are correct.
phubert Apr 7	Right. And, after just using that method, my request was misunderstood, so the edit wasn't what I intended!!
jmxz Apr 7	I've tried "report abuse" to fix typeos before. It (a) is too much work to fix a spelling error; so I don't bother anymore, and (b) appears not to have worked - last time I looked the error was still there.
phubert Apr 7	jackie suggested I use email hereafter...
aikiwolfie Apr 7	Be like me and just don't care or learn to type or spell. I've learned to spell. I use Firefox :oD
phubert Apr 7	Well, my _spelling_ USUALLY isn't that bad, but my TYPING is frequently somewhat inaccurate! I also use Firefox... can't really comprehend anyone using anything ELSE!!!
jackie_c Apr 7	Just for the record, this decision was not made because 1 person or 1 idea was changed. It was due to many of them being changed and this has happened more than one time. Will I list out any time this has happened, no as I will not broadcast on here who has done it. If someone wants to say they did it, that is up to them, if not, that is fine too, but wanted to let you know it happened more often than you think.
aikiwolfie Apr 7	I changed this one. Not in any negative sinistar way mind. But i did point out a long time ago people could make bad changes to their ideas. Some forums have a limited time window for edits. A day or so. It give people a chance to fix errors they might have missed that others may notice.
jmxz Apr 7	I think I edited most of my ideas historically - as the first few comments trickled in - to respond to the feedback I got. I don't think I ever changed the meaning of an idea, though (feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) - just clarified the wording.
programatix Apr 8	I changed this one. http://www.ideastorm.com/article/show/10077306/Reduce_laptop_price_as_Acer_did At first the title was "Reduce Laptop Price in Malaysia". Someone disagree with the word Malaysia. So I changed it to "Reduce Laptop Proce as Acer did". Is it wrong to do so?
programatix Apr 8	Oh, by the way, if Dell is so worry about title change, at least let us edit the content of the idea. This way, the author can fix any mistakes he/she did to the post.
phubert Apr 8	I'm with you, jmxz. I have edited ideas to reflect the discussion in the comments. If those commenting can improve the idea, shouldn't it EVOLVE? Dell likes STATIC things, I think they have difficulty understanding our perspective... or certainly MINE. For me, the DISCUSSION can be more important than the SUGGESTION, itself. If the suggestion provides an opening for discussion, perhaps the suggestion should THEN evolve!
jervis961 Apr 8	I still think you should be able to edit the idea and title but the changes have to be moderated before they get posted. This gives the user full control of the content as long as Dell doesn't find that you have drastically altered the idea.
phubert Apr 8	Yes, jervis, that may be the best solution. It HAS been raised, hasn't it? In that event, I'd have to change my suggestion to include that! :-D
jervis961 Apr 8	That would be such a pain to do. I had thought about a protest where we all report abuse for edits but I couldn't do that to jackie. I would rather have her working to merge all these dupes and delete the true non-ideas and old jokes. Seems they are working on it but there are so many. I marked a few but they don't seem to agree on some of my suggestions. :D
phubert Apr 8	Well, would it be any more difficult than the dozen or so email Jackie and I traded recently over ONE edit gone awry?
phubert Apr 8	I see the total # of Jorge's ideas has dropped from 199 to 195...
phubert Apr 8	...and the "Top Ideamakers" list STILL has "ARTICLES submitted" ... NOT "suggestions" or "Ideas"... ** Of course I'd STILL like to see it list the # of COMMENTS made! :-(
jervis961 Apr 8	Well at least they are cleaning up, lets face it many of jorge's ideas violated TOU the way he insulted the mods. I was always shocked that DA1 left them up when they were clearly in violation.
phubert Apr 8	Apparently I wasn't paying much attention to much of it... I really DO NOT read everything (compare my vote count to yours, for example) He's fine (and _welcome_) at VL.
phubert Apr 8	@Dell_admins- as jervis961 has again suggested: allow edits, but subject to MODERATION. So, we would be free to edit, but Dell Mods would review and approve.
programatix Apr 10	All I can see is, Dell Mods are working hard to find the mistakes we all do, but they are not working hard enough to have the ideas implemented.
jervis961 Apr 10	Maybe you should work harder to make sure your idea is perfect so they don't have to edit it. :D
phubert Apr 10	Which means we would need to become more prescient as well... :-D
jervis961 Apr 10	I meant error wise phubert not concept but you got me. :D
brokencrystal 2 days ago	Just allow us to edit our categories, just in case we selected the wrong one or forgot to pick one at least.

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