Example Rationale
It’s already very long, which makes it suitable for most circumstances. However, I’ve encountered a few examples where it’s prevented me improving past content:
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I’ve made a lot of spelling mistakes in older posts that I want to remediate.
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Likewise, I used to incorrectly blockquote things which, after reading the WHATWG specification, probably shouldn’t be.
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In an old post, I’ve accidentally posted the last four numbers of some debit cards alongside their SWIFT BICs:
It’s not much a problem unless someone really, really decides to target me, but it’d be nice to not have to go to a moderator to replace something so simple with a redacted version:
Instances which have Done so
I’ve seen on some other instances that the edit timeout is disabled:
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For what it’s worth, having a limit on when posts can be edited gives one fewer attack vector for spammers since it makes it harder for them to create plausible posts that pass initial moderator review, then edit them later to contain malicious links.
I also have a purely personal preference toward reading what’s new on a topic by looking at a sequence of posts, rather than by piecing together the edit history.
And also personally, on point 1 - unless there spelling mistakes that make it truly hard for readers to understand what was written they’re, I personally wouldn’t worry too much about it - if folks judge you for it, their just being nitpicky 
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I’m not passionate either way - just throwing in a couple thoughts on why it could be desirable to have or keep a control on that.
*As a spelling bee kid, this sentence caused great emotional pain to write, but wanted to make you feel better about spelling misteaks 
2 Likes
@johnandmegh, I despise it too, although I think unless the timeout is at least as aggressive as openSUSE’s Discourse instance is (⪅ 10 min), that’ll occur regardless.
However, forum.qt.io (albeit NodeBB), despite not having a timeout whatsoever anymore, hasn’t been plagued by this in my experience. They actively removed their timeout in the last year or two.
Hehe… Thanks. Though, do screen readers cope very well with spelling mistakes? That’s my current primary concern - I presume that ascertaining whether something is misspelled more difficult when you’ve heard it, unless you rewind a few times. I’m rather hard of hearing, though, so I’m prejudiced.
