[user-the-name]

An edit button does not make sense for a service like Twitter. There are way to many ways to abuse it, and any solution that tries to deal with those just ends up being equivalent to what already exists: Delete and repost.

[siruva07]

Why does an edit button not make sense for a service like Twitter? How would it be abused?

Deleting and reposting hurts and would eliminate engagement statistics.

From a product experience, edited tweets, similar to Slack, could show an "(edited)" that when clicked on let's a user see the version history. That way, it can't be abused, but does allow for minor typos (e.g. https://twitter.com/sir/status/1353737949729468416)

[bachmeier]

Because rather than retweeting "I hate the KKK" you just retweeted "I support the KKK".

[Spivak]

I mean it's not an insurmountable problem though. As long as likes and RTs are tied to a specific version of a Tweet and you can see the edits and associated likes it's fine.

[kristiandupont]

Even setting aside the UX issues in this, I think this is underestimating the complexity. I don't know anything about Twitters infrastructure but obviously we are not talking about a single postgres instance here. Effectively turning every tweet into a linked list with connected retweets, likes etc. is a significant data model change for a system of this scale.

[reidjs]

For now let's just add a "*" to the original post to give all the retweeters deniability. I'd bet 99% of edits are for grammar/spelling/readability.

[user-the-name]

That just makes it even more confusing. So you edit your tweet, but all the people who retweeted are still showing the wrong version and you can't do anything about it.

It kind of makes the situation worse than it is now.

[davidivadavid]

It's not the "wrong" version. It's the original version, as per when they quoted it. There's really no other way it could work.

When you quote someone, you repeat what they said, not what they might repeat some time in the future. When you quote a book, you write down what's written in the book. Not what the author writes in the next edition.

You may in time edit/remove/amend your tweet to comment on further changes.

[nefitty]

This is a particularly low-tier way to troll on Reddit. It doesn’t seem like the problem is drastic there, or even here on HN. I think the problem does stem from a retweet having a vibe of “I endorse this message.”, regardless of what the retweeter has written in their bio.

[JoshTriplett]

> I think the problem does stem from a retweet having a vibe of “I endorse this message.”, regardless of what the retweeter has written in their bio.

At the very least, a retweet always means "I want more people to see this message".

[siruva07]

Since Twitter has effectively moved the default away from chronological order, what is really the purpose of a retweet? An upvote is naturally a positive interaction for “suggested tweets my followers should see”

[JoshTriplett]

Retweets still convey a tweet to your followers much more directly than a "like" does.

[saagarjha]

I see it occasionally on both platforms, but not very much. Usually it gets caught very quickly.

[davidivadavid]

So keep the original message when you retweet. That doesn't seem like an insurmountable amount of conceptual complexity.

[user-the-name]

That just makes the feature weird and broken.

[davidivadavid]

How?

[willj]

I think the lack of an edit button is helpful on a couple fronts:

- it makes authors think more before posting; if there are typos, or it isn’t exactly what they want to say, and it gains traction, they can’t fix it, so they work to make it right the first time

- Most people ignore edit histories [citation needed; based on my own experience and knowledge of others’]. As a result, if the post is edited, the conversation can get fragmented and confusing for later readers

That said, I’d love it if there were a way to see deleted tweets, at least of politicians

[nefitty]

The deleted tweet view is obviously not a part of Twitter yet, but here’s a service from ProPublica for this specific use case: https://www.politwoops.com/countries

[ballenf]

Editing tweets to me is not just a feature, it's a fundamental shift to the nature of the platform. Even bigger than doubling tweet size did.

Twitter is defined by tweets not being polished Facebook or LinkedIn posts. Except for people who don't use it that way, but they feel artificial to me. I'd rather all of Twitter not drift that direction.

And personally, I love that I can't worry about fixing typos. If they're bad enough I delete. If not, move on, stay humble and pay more attention next time.

[thomasahle]

> Deleting and reposting hurts and would eliminate engagement statistics.

Maybe there should be a maximum number of characters edited. If I have liked/retweeted a tweet, and its author then completely rewrites it,I would want my "engagement" eliminated.

[RL_Quine]

Am considering taking Tesla private at $9420. Funding secured.

Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured.

Am considering taking Tesla private at $42. Funding secured.

[conradfr]

Also why not make editing available for n minutes? Perfect for typos.

[thomasahle]

That's probably an even better approach, though famous people may have a lot of engagements during that time.

Maybe just make editing work like deletion/repost: Remove all likes a retweets. Then after n minutes it becomes an unattractive thing to do.

[user-the-name]

Because if you immediately notice it, delete and repost works just as well.

[mnx]

no way to prevent just adding a 'not' while still allowing sensible editing.

[user-the-name]

Because you can completely change the content of a post after it gets traction.

[notafraudster]

While I agree with the general replies to the parent comment, it seems like the magnitude of this problem is relatively small given the staffing Twitter has who could solve it. Even the general problem of "Can we tell if an edit changes the connotation of a sentence?" seems like it is solveable at Twitter's scale.

[siruva07]

A time or engagement based restriction would prevent this, i.e. having 3-5 minutes to edit the tweet, at which point the edit button is locked. Revision history would still show. "Undo Send" a la Gmail, but for tweets.

[user-the-name]

But if the tweet has only been live for a few minutes, you might as well delete and repost.

[ajanuary]

"Revision history would still show"

Except in a distributed system like Twitter (including client and server) there is no single timeline, and amateur digital forensics will erroneously say "aha, but you retweeted it before it was edited"

[Spivak]

As long as RTs and likes are tied to a specific version of the Tweet then it's no real problem.

[kristiandupont]

Perhaps, but you are talking about creating rather complex machinery in order to support a tiny feature. If the only argument in favor is engagement statistics (would those take edits into consideration as well?), I certainly see why Twitter doesn't care too much.

[corobo]

> and any solution that tries to deal with those just ends up being equivalent to what already exists: Delete and repost.

I'd love this honestly. Even if it was just a delete and repost under the hood, generally I find I want an edit button just after posting and noticing all the typos.

As long as the interface interacted like an edit form rather than have me copy and then rebuild the tweet I'd be good to go.

[thebean11]

It would be bad UX. Users would expect it to edit (keeping likes, retweets, replies, timestamp etc) but it would actually delete and repost which is a very different thing on Twitter.

[corobo]

That would by why I included my use case. Limit it to the first 2 minutes or whatever.

Users would get used to it within days either way.

[user-the-name]

Mastodon has a "Delete and repost", which deletes the post, and copies the contents to the posting field so you can edit and repost.

[corobo]

Twitter has users, can't beat that feature. I'll use Mastodon when it's worth the server admin haha

[user-the-name]

Bit angry, are we.

[corobo]

Angry at what?

[skinkestek]

Mastodon has this :-)