Allowing users to edit their own posts without a time limit

Lliure · April 13, 2025, 8:58pm

I’ve been tending to a couple of posts and comments that I intend to maintain long-term.
For example:

Those are rather complex and long, which means they inevitably must be updated after some time.
However, Discourse comes with a time limit of three months (I guess) by default, after which the post or comment is locked and can no longer be edited.

@JCS I’d like to propose, and encourage you, to relax that time limit for all users to unlimited. That would fix the frozen-post issue. Discourse project members have suggested in the past that this is what they do.

If you’re reluctant to relax the time limit, then may I suggest that we try the relaxed setting for a limited time as an experiment. In case that during that experiment, you find that the relaxed setting makes your work more difficult or causes the moderator team any inconvenience, I wouldn’t mind that the limit be set back to the stricter default.

I’ve been bitten by this issue several times in the past (example 1, 2), so I figure that relaxing the time limit might be a net benefit for everyone.

Please let me know what you think.

Also pinging @irvinewade for comments.

FranklyFlawless · April 13, 2025, 9:03pm

A workaround is to make the post into a wiki if your trust level is 3 or higher.

Lliure · April 13, 2025, 9:48pm

Sounds fair. I browsed this forum for prior art but couldn’t find a single wiki, so I figured wikis might be unwelcome. @JCS any guidance?

FranklyFlawless · April 13, 2025, 10:01pm

Here are the top three most viewed wiki posts:

Lliure · April 13, 2025, 10:20pm

Thanks @FrankyFlawless, that definitely helps.

So I guess it’s time to grind so I can re-earn that Regular status so I can do the conversion. Been Regular several times but keep losing it again due to intermittent inactivity. Welp.

Gotta go grind, I guess.

irvinewade · April 13, 2025, 11:04pm

As a general comment, I think it is reasonable policy to disallow editing of old posts, even though there are arguments to allow it. I don’t have a strong opinion either way and it is definitely not something that I myself can change.

I would actually suggest that for information that will be maintained over long periods of time, it should be in the Community Wiki, rather than in this forum. That has no restrictions as far as time-frame goes - and it is a cleaner place to locate information that has long-term and ongoing relevance.

Maybe it would help if a moderator could relax the forum restriction for a specific post but I don’t know whether that is possible.

Anyway, it looks as if you have a solution.

j_s · April 13, 2025, 11:53pm

Be prepared for a multi-step process getting an account and permisions with no clear guidance on how many steps there are or who to direct each “Mother, may I?” to.

As far as I know, a forum account is not needed, but it might help.

I didn’t know “Regular” staus required maintainance, but I guess that is implied by the name.

FranklyFlawless · April 14, 2025, 12:42am

Here is a Discourse blog article explaining trust levels:

Trust Level 3 – Regular

Regulars are the backbone of your community, the most active readers and reliable contributors over a period of months, even years. Because they’re always around, they can be further trusted to help tidy up and organize the community.

To get to trust level 3, in the last 100 days…

Must have visited at least 50% of days

Must have replied to at least 10 different non-PM topics

Of topics created in the last 100 days, must have viewed 25% (capped at 500)

Of posts created in the last 100 days, must have read 25% (capped at 20k)

Must have received 20 likes, and given 30 likes.*

Must not have received more than 5 spam or offensive flags (with unique posts and unique users for each, confirmed by a moderator)

Must not have been suspended or silenced in the last 6 months

These likes must be across a minimum number of different users (1/5 the number), across a minimum number of different days (1/4 the number). Likes cannot be from PMs.

All of the above criteria must be true to achieve trust level 3. Furthermore, unlike other trust levels, you can lose trust level 3 status. If you dip below these requirements in the last 100 days, you will be demoted back to Member. However, in order to avoid constant promotion/demotion situations, there is a 2-week grace period immediately after gaining Trust Level 3 during which you will not be demoted.

tracy · April 14, 2025, 2:09pm

I haven’t encountered this problem. Especially making spelling corrections way back. But then again, I forgot how far back.

FranklyFlawless · April 15, 2025, 2:25am

Up to one month:

Lliure · October 7, 2025, 9:00pm

Took me six months but here I am, wielding the level 3 badge again!

However, I don’t see a wrench icon nor the “Make Wiki” option the documentation says I’m supposed to be seeing.

Here’s all I have:

Screenshot of footer of post #212761014×230 15.6 KB

@JCS Any ideas as to why my post doesn’t show me a “Make Wiki” option?

@FranklyFlawless How can you tell that those are wiki posts?

irvinewade · October 7, 2025, 9:35pm

I made both of those posts into a Wiki for you. I still think that the Community Wiki is a better place long term.

FranklyFlawless · October 7, 2025, 10:55pm

The giveaway is a green font timestamp at the top of the post, and an Edit button at the bottom of the same post. Here is a more recent example:

These are the settings that must be edited as an Admin:

j_s · October 7, 2025, 11:03pm

You might have the same point of confusion that I had until just now. I just looked at an old post of mine and a recently post of mine. It looks to me like the wrench only shows up for posts still inside the edit time window.

irvinewade · October 7, 2025, 11:03pm

The edit (pencil) icon is a slightly different design - and the edit icon at the top of the post showing the number of edits gives different output if you hover over it i.e. “wiki last edited on …” v. “post last edited on …”.