[XCabbage]

> somebody at Microsoft edited a critical comment that I made earlier this week to simply read “hello there”, still under my name

Moderators on web forums everywhere need to learn that this kind of editing, when done without a publicly visible indication that the post was edited against the nominal author's will, is unacceptable. I've gotten into this argument on Stack Exchange in the past (although fortunately on Stack Overflow at least the mods already have a policy against this - they can delete a comment or leave it standing but may not put words into someone's mouth). It's especially bad when, as is the case here, the edited comment reflects poorly on the author.

It's not just discourteous, it's a tort in at least the UK where I live (namely a violation of the "moral right" against "false attribution") and likely many other jurisdictions too. Do this enough and eventually somebody sufficiently litigious will sue you, and you'll deserve it.

[schoolornot]

I'm surprised it didn't kill Reddit when Steve Huffman pulled that stunt on the site: https://old.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/5frg1n/tifu_...

[yjftsjthsd-h]

Oh hey, it's the event that made me leave reddit:) Yeah, I'm not sure why that didn't prompt a mass exodus. One thing that I've discovered by talking to people in real life is that apparently a lot of people just don't know that it happened.

[VRay]

I dunno man, in that context it just felt like friendly internet trolling

TheDonald users were trolling the crap out of spez by pinging his name repeatedly, so he trolled them back by obviously editing in TheDonald mods' names.

Then TheDonald users responded like a bunch of angry children about it

That said, it's good to get the word out that Reddit's always been complete BS through and through. The site was all sock puppets initially, and nowadays every sub with more than 100k users or so is extremely heavily censored and moderated in a completely non-transparent way.

[Jerrrry]

If it is against trump, it doesn't matter, it must be 'good', is an actual sentiment, felt by many, including the people drooling here.

[luckman212]

Is that StackOverflow policy officially in writing somewhere? I had one of my answers edited by a mod not too long ago without any warning. Wasn't too happy about it.

[lucb1e]

Stackoverflow.com -> help -> search "editing" -> top hit: https://stackoverflow.com/help/editing

See the itemization of reasons to edit a post for. It also explicitly mentions that the meaning of the post may not be changed. You can, as the owner, also always roll back edits. Another option is to take it to the meta site and voice your complaint. One of the reject reasons in the review queue (note that moderator's edits don't go through the review queue) is if the edit changes the meaning of the post; the edit system is really meant (as the page says) for fixing typos and on occasion updating/adding information like if the post became outdated or to consolidate info from comments.

Everyone can also see the revisions of any (non-deleted) answers and questions, so if someone changed the meaning, it clearly says "person x edited this post" (right next to the original author's name) and you can click that link and see who actually said what.

[XCabbage]

Editing of answers is fine - by anybody, not just mods. That's because there's a clearly shown "edited" section displayed at the bottom of the answer, along with the editor's name, right next to the "answered" section showing the original author's name, indicating to anyone who reads the answer that it's a jointly-authored post that isn't entirely the original author's work. You can also look at the revision history to see exactly who wrote what. There's no false attribution there.

Comments don't have this history or indication of being edited by a third party, though, which is why only moderators have the power to edit them and most such edits are considered unacceptable and banned by policy.

[forgotmypw17]

It's unacceptable, but it is totally possible and allowed by the platform.

I think the solution is platforms which make this sort of editing impossible by using cryptographic signatures and user accounts backed by private keys.