Dear Sanity Clause
Please can we have an edit function for Christmas? Just the one - a small but effective one will suffice thank you.

quote=Graham Bullough]What is meant by an edit function? Surely each of us already has an effective edit function if we simply use our eyes and brains to read through what we've drafted and then correct any errors before we submit our postings.

No Graham we dont! I am dyslexic and while I use the spell check my brain will still read what I think I have written and not what may actually be on the paper. If I come back to a thread that I have often contributed to some months before and actually have to read what I have put rather than remember what I think I have put I will spot mistakes. Granted I'm not sure what good an edit button will do for that, bit like others have also done I now I have sometimes clicked post when I meant preview.

You might need to add some further info to a post or a link?

It isn't the hardest thing to have an edit function on a forum.

Despite the replies provoked by my earlier posting I still feel ignorant as to what an "edit function" actually is.

I'm far from perfect in anything though admittedly pretty good at mediocrity in various respects! However, it seems that a notable proportion of errors in responses on this forum could be identified and avoided if posters had even a cursory look through what they've drafted.

My knowledge of dyslexia and word blindness is limited. Therefore, if an edit function can be of assistance to anyone with these or related conditions, it should be available.

To add to Firesafety101's comments about USA spellings, it seems that most spellcheckers are designed by Americans and thus unhelpful as regards UK English. The same goes for grammar checkers. By contrast with people's brains they seem inherently limited in their capacity and tend to dumb down what people have drafted. One classic example of this is their general inability to cope with the words "who" and "which" - good words which the grammar checkers usually try to replace with "that". This is another good English word but not when it usurps "who" and "which". However, if this example doesn't make sense to most people, perhaps my concern about good basic English (and a valuable tool for OS&H practitioners) is futile!

End of rant :-)

I use tippex!

Graham a recent thread I was involved in- I had made a mistake in what I was writing to the point it could have been interpreted in anumber of ways. The edit function would allow me to re-word my text to prevent this .

An edit function would be a handy addition especially for editing content. There is a possibility that a heavily edited post might mean that subsequent posts may loose their context or at least not be as meaningful as they had prior to editing (if that makes sense)

Spelling wise, there is a spell check, and also if you use Firefox Mozilla this spell checks the text for you. The other option is to type your reply in a word processor application most of which can be set for automatic spell check and then cut and paste.

I want a like button for Christmas from IOSH. I have suggested it before but people got all high and mighty that they don't want to dumb down this professional forum into being like youtube or facebook. I still cannot see how a 'like' button would undermine the professionalism of this erudite forum.