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Here is another way to fool :) the system: (don't take this too harsh)

If your comment is older than 5 minutes,

  • do as if you didn't see it.
  • Hit the edit button. It will prevent it hadn't noticed too, that you're going to start an action you'll never end regularly.
  • Edit
  • Don't hit save, but mark your comment, Ctrl c (copy to clipboard). Else you get punished by the orange comments may only be edited for 5 minutes(click on this box to dismiss)-box.
  • Trigger cancel
  • Create new comment. Insert the whole thing. Ctrl v
  • Trigger save
  • Now delete the old version.
  • Mission accomplished.

Alternative version I like to suggest, instead of this complicated gymnastics:

If no comment has been added in between, allow edits even years later. Maybe issue new informations, if the comment adresses special @persons.

Of course only, if no new comment has been added meanwhile.

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  • 9
    Sounds like a procedure for copying an existing comment into a new one.
    – Michael Petrotta
    Commented Apr 17, 2012 at 4:18
  • @MichaelPetrotta: Yes, and deleting the old one, so it is more a move than a copy. So you avoid the too chatty warning.
    – user unknown
    Commented Apr 17, 2012 at 4:22
  • 2
    Sounds like a lot of work (checking for other comments, etc.) for really marginal benefit.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Apr 17, 2012 at 4:35
  • Why not remove all text except for the last two paragraphs, being the actual feature request?
    – Arjan
    Commented Apr 17, 2012 at 5:57
  • @Arjan: to show, that a user can reach nearly the same effect with a lot of action himself by now. I often don't want to add a second comment to my first one, but prefer a longer comment.
    – user unknown
    Commented Apr 17, 2012 at 8:42
  • To me, it's just noise with a difficult title. But none of the downvotes was mine, so I can't be sure that's what causing those downvotes.
    – Arjan
    Commented Apr 17, 2012 at 12:25
  • @Arjan: Maybe my charming fool the system?
    – user unknown
    Commented Apr 17, 2012 at 15:27
  • 3
    This is, by far, the dumbest post I've ever encountered on Meta. You're not editing anything. You're deleting and pasting. You're creating a new comment and deleting the old one. You can't edit a comment after 5 minutes, no matter what type of shenanigans you try to pull.
    – Johnny Bones
    Commented Nov 13, 2013 at 11:37

3 Answers 3

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There is no real question so how can I answer?

However, I support this proposal! I would go so far to remove the edit time limitation completely.

If - as everybody seems to concur - comments are really that unimportant, why is there an edit window in the first place (especially when the digital restrictions method applied can be tricked so easily)?

Just keep old edits around (as Facebook does) and let people edit their comments at will.

There seems to be the notion that the Stack Exchange sites are for Q&A only. That might have been so when the Stack Exchange network was small. But today there are a lot of sites and in my opinion not all lend themselves well for the Q&A format.

For example Ask Patents. When a request for prior art is posted, there is not definite or absolute answer possible. Every answer to a prior art question will likely solicit debate, arguments, polling, or extended discussion. Indeed, before you will provide any anwser, you usually will have to discuss the language of the patent claim terms first to get an understanding so a discussion is inevitable. Where should the discussion take place if not using comments? Therefore comments should not be considered unimporant.

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3

This feature request would be a non-trivial amount of work for the SE developers, all for the minimal gain of saving users literally about 20 seconds to re-create a > 5 minute old comment with a few corrections.

As Jeff and company have said many times, comments are purposefully designed to be unimportant; comments should not contain crucial information.

Besides, the team has far, far better feature requests begging for their time :-)

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    Ugh, I might have +1'ed this before I saw which feature request you linked to... I'll be leading a campaign to bring Jeff out of retirement to mark that status-declined again if there starts to be more noise about it being implemented.
    – Cody Gray
    Commented Apr 17, 2012 at 5:28
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    @The - I hate social networking as much as the next guy, but that's an intelligent idea, damn it :-)
    – Adam Rackis
    Commented Apr 17, 2012 at 5:28
  • Since comments don't contain serious information, it shouldn't be so much work to make a minor correction/addition. Yes, I agree. And I don't have an overview how many developers are working on which features, so maybe the priority is low. It's just something I mentioned and wanted to share.
    – user unknown
    Commented Apr 17, 2012 at 8:38
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    How much time would it take to simply remove the timeout? I think that is trivial...
    – keshlam
    Commented Sep 13, 2014 at 14:02
0

Stack Exchange sites, are Q&A website. Comments dont matter that much, to affect the site.

Whatever way you devised to fool the system, is not fooling, but ignored.

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1
  • Then why have the time limit at all? If it serves no purpose, it's just one more thing to maintain. If it gets in the way, it's a misfeature and should be fixed. If there's a justification for it, I'd like to see it explained so we aren't tempted to work around it.
    – keshlam
    Commented Sep 13, 2014 at 14:05

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