Option to notify others about a revision in one's post

[blue_leaf77]

Sometimes you realize you made mistakes or wanted to add something more to make your message more transparent in the response you have posted. We can do that using "edit" function. Just that, if the revision concerns something essential (e.g. typo or technical mistakes in equations) for the upcoming discussions, the other participants of the thread are better notified about. It may not necessarily be all participants, only those whom the revision maker thinks should know (e.g. the OP in an homework thread). For this purpose, what if something like "notify about the revisions" option is added whenever one makes an errata where he/she can specify which thread participants should be notified?

 

[DrClaude]

There is a way to do this "manually." After editing, you can add an additional post mentioning that you have correct your previous post, so that an alert gets issued. Also, when you edit your post, you can add in the text window a comment about the edit you did, so that it is clear that the post was changed.

We'll see if @Greg Bernhardt can implement your idea.

 

[Simon Bridge]

Some thoughts:
I'd put a major modification following the main body - unless it's a short thread or there are yet no replies.
I may edit a long reply and add a heads up at the end of the thread.
Either approach notifies everyone who has asked to be notified.
If they don't think a notification is relevant to them, they are free to ignore it: isn't it arrogant to take that decision away from them?
A modification that I think is only really relevant to one or two people I will make in private. This is pretty rare.
Usually I will write for people who may google to the thread some time later as well as the OP.

A notification: "<membername> has edited her post in a thread you are following, reason: <reason>" coming up atomatically with an edit may be slightly more useful than the notifications about likes.

 

[DrClaude]

If they don't think a notification is relevant to them, they are free to ignore it: isn't it arrogant to take that decision away from them?

I wouldn't call it arrogance. When you tell something to someone and then realize that it was incorrect, you can feel bad and want to make sure that they don't act on the wrong info.

 

[Simon Bridge]

Sure - but I was responding to the part about not notifying everyone... this struck me as the principle difference with what happens now.
Right now it's nobody if you choose "edit" and everybody if you choose to add errata at the end of the thread.

 

[blue_leaf77]

After editing, you can add an additional post mentioning that you have correct your previous post, so that an alert gets issued. Also, when you edit your post, you can add in the text window a comment about the edit you did, so that it is clear that the post was changed.

The thing is a thread can progress so as to invite a stack of posts. In that case, I don't think the thread participants will still have the desire to scroll up to happen to spot a post with "Edit: ..." that was not previously existing unless he/she is notified that a certain post has been changed for a nontrivial reason.

A notification: "<membername> has edited her post in a thread you are following, reason: <reason>" coming up atomatically with an edit may be slightly more useful than the notifications about likes.

Something like that will probably do.