that's a question for yeaGO!

I'm not trying to be overly critical, but maybe you're just posting too fast? For Q&A topics, I always see you post twice up front, one right after the other. I don't know if you're trying to be "First!" or what, but there has to be a better way. The main reason the Preview screen appears is to let you make sure you got everything right, so maybe pay more attention to that screen while you try to condense your first two posts into a single thought.

Related to that, it would be nice if at least the OP would also appear on the Preview screen.

Editing privileges are restricted to a few admins. I think the preview window suffices as a pseudo-edit feature for general users.

I don't know if there's a rank/points benefit to having your answer be the one selected as correct, but if there is, it should be removed. Likewise, the notification on the main Q&A page beside each answered question for who answered it should be removed.

That's a lot of the problem with Q&A. The first one in with the right answer is usually picked, and people clearly want to see their name in there as the one with the right answer. I know plenty of the major Q&A answering users on the site answer questions because they want to be helpful and apply their game knowledge, and not to show up on the list page, so they'll still be just as active answering questions, and maybe the people whose primary motivation is "Answering before Epochalyptik" will stop trying to dive in with poorly written, not always accurate responses.

By removing the obvious public acknowledgement, you remove a lot of the desire people have to be the first one in the door with the answer, which will lead to more well-thought out and described answers.

The main thing I've noticed (and I've occasionally been guilty of it myself) is people who will quickly post a basic description of the correct answer, and then after it's been posted, go digging for the comprehensive rule and oracle text rulings to actually prove their answer. It clutters up the thread, essentially gives you two correct answers by one user, and then leads to 4 people all posting the correct answer, and then posting about how they got ninja'd.

I do think that whichever response is chosen as the correct answer should be moved to the very top of the thread if possible, so people don't have to read through a page of argument and debate if all they want is the actual answer.

I also think it might be worthwhile to format the Q&A response thread submissions differently. Maybe instead of just the standard response box, there could be a response box, and then a second box which says "Please paste in relevant comprehensive rulings to this question" which could display in the response under a __ bar or line or something similar. We should generally always be encouraging responders to be quoting the rules text to support their answer instead of just saying "Yes that works"

In the cases where I have to select an answer to move an old question out of the queue, I'll pick the most relevantly detailed of the posts. I also try to give as much detail as necessary when I post responses.

I don't know what the easiest remedy would be besides encouraging users to post and select answers based on completeness rather than order. Some questions are so basic that a simple answer can be given and doesn't need to quote rules text. I normally only quote rules text if the question involved a complicated concept or if there's a dispute that needs to be settled. I usually just explain the answer and why it's true.

Same here on quoting the CR. It's only necessary if there's an argument to sort out or if the root cause of the answer to the question is something kind of weird or subtle.

I find that it's better to explain the answer in layman's terms because the CR excerpts can get kind of dense, especially for newer players. Often, the layman's explanation will cover the details well enough to make a CR quote unnecessary anyway.

You can also cut down on noise and duplicate/wrong answers by allowing users to delete and edit answers.

What's wrong with allowing users to edit and delete their own posts? and not just in Q&A, but elsewhere too?

Again,

What are you afraid of users doing if you allow them to edit their own posts?

The primary benefits to not allowing users to edit their posts, as I see it, are:

1) People will be more careful about what they say, especially in the heat of the moment, because once it is posted, it is there until staff decide to see it and take action on it.

2) It cuts down on forum drama around trades, when there's no chance that someone edited their post, say, after a post below them agreeing to a price. By not allowing edits, they also can stick more easily by their "We don't get involved in your trade drama" policy because there's both no way to change your post after the fact, and thus no way for the staff to be able to look back at previous versions and adjudicate.

I'd be perfectly happy with "You can only edit or delete your post if there are no posts below it" though. If simply for the times I post a rules answer, and then after it's up go "Oh...wait...That was stupid" or far more importantly: "I checked it over in preview, but there is still a silly spelling error that is going to bug me forever."

@Sam_I_am: Devonin summed it up pretty nicely.

It's not that we're vehemently opposed to the idea of allowing users to edit their posts, but we feel it may not be worthwhile to give editing privs to users. Generally speaking, editing would mostly be used to fix spelling errors or maybe add a suggestion as a second thought. It could potentially introduce problems regarding after-the-fact changes to inflammatory or trade-related posts.

I don't really expect any severe problems, but I also don't really think it's a pressing issue.

1) People will be more careful about what they say, especially in the heat of the moment, because once it is posted, it is there until staff decide to see it and take action on it.

Just about every single first-time user will expect their own posts to be edited because that's how just about every single other forum allows you to edit your own posts, in-fact, many demand that you edit your post rather than make a second post. Most users will expect to be able to edit their own posts until they actually decide they want to edit and find that they can't.

This is especially true on a website where, if there is a rules page or an FAQ, it certainly isn't very conspicuous.

Secondly, It's impossible to determine at any point in time whether you're wrong about something or whether you'll decide that you wanted to say something differently. Mistakes happen that you might decide to edit later EVEN IF you double-check your post.

Expecting users to "be more careful" Is a cardinal usability sin of software design.

2) It cuts down on forum drama around trades, when there's no chance that someone edited their post, say, after a post below them agreeing to a price. By not allowing edits, they also can stick more easily by their "We don't get involved in your trade drama" policy because there's both no way to change your post after the fact, and thus no way for the staff to be able to look back at previous versions and adjudicate.

If an edit history is not feasible for trading forums, than that's all good and fine, but what about forums that are not the trading forum.

And why in the world are you concerned with people editing away inflammatory posts?

When they edit them away, then guess what? The inflammatory posts are gone!.

Do you seriously want users to be unable to undo inflammatory remarks just so that they and everyone else on the board has to live with it? That's just sadistic.

And if the moderators are normally going to delete the post anyway, then what's the harm in the poster himself doing it ahead of time? Both ways, the post is gone!

You seem very adamant about being able to edit your posts. I notice you revived the thread only a few minutes after double posting in the Q&A.

Personally, I would only push for the edit feature if we also had a quotation feature. Because we don't run on vBulletin or another "true" forum, that would be more difficult to implement. Ultimately, I'm unconvinced it would be worth the trouble.

Also, admins rarely delete posts. We don't police the forums just to erase everything that isn't positive.

Again, I don't think this is really a big deal. I can let the others know there's interest, but I won't push for it myself.

It only makes sense that one would be thinking about the need to be able to edit posts when that person needs to edit one of his own posts.

Again, maybe you should post more carefully instead of rushing to be OMG FIRST! or whatever your reason is for screwing up.