Why can't I edit a question after it has been answered?
Sometimes, a question is badly rendered, no math formatting, etc. To make other visitors to the site feel easier to look for questions, I try to edit questions, and place them in the right categories. However, after a question has been answered, it is impossible for me to edit it, even for future visitors.
Sometimes, a question is badly rendered, no math formatting, etc. To make other visitors to the site feel easier to look for questions, I try to edit questions, and place them in the right categories. However, after a question has been answered, it is impossible for me to edit it, even for future visitors.
1 Answer
Here's the deal.
Explanation:
The ability to edit questions after they have been answered was not given to regular contributors because of safety issues.
The idea is that when the team built Socratic, all users, regardless if they were newcomers or not, had the same "powers" on the site, which included the ability to edit questions both before and after they have been answered.
The team found that this presented a security issue because trolls started messing with the answered questions, changing the wording or replacing it completely, thus making the answer unusable.
So in order to prevent that from happening, regular contributors, which at that time meant everyone except moderators, were blocked from being able to edit answered questions.
Now, things have changed a lot in terms of security since the early days of the site--newcomers to the site have restricted access nowadays--so maybe it's time to revisit this issue.
That said, there is a chance that the team will decide to give the ability to edit answered questions to all trusted members of the community, but that is is most likely going to take some time to materialize.
So until the team makes the change, don't forget that if you're a trusted member of the community, you have the ability to edit unanswered questions.
