Stealth editing

This is something I’ve noticed a few times, but very occasionally I will read a post and come back to it later to find that it has been changed/edited, but does not have the usual “Edited [time] by [username].”

In my experience, it always says that when you deliberately edit your post, even within a few seconds of posting, so I’m wondering how posts are being edited without the line above?

I hope I’m wrong because the alternative makes me a bit uncomfortable, but are some posts being quietly edited by the mods? If not, how do you edit your posts without triggering that line about the time it was edited?

22 hours ago, ragnamuffin said:

This is something I’ve noticed a few times, but very occasionally I will read a post and come back to it later to find that it has been changed/edited, but does not have the usual “Edited [time] by [username].”

In my experience, it always says that when you deliberately edit your post, even within a few seconds of posting, so I’m wondering how posts are being edited without the line above?

I hope I’m wrong because the alternative makes me a bit uncomfortable, but are some posts being quietly edited by the mods? If not, how do you edit your posts without triggering that line about the time it was edited?

We do edit posts that contain rules violations. Usually this just involves deleting the text that breaks the rules. I don't edit posts for grammar, correct mistaken information, or remove things I personally don't agree with, but if a post contains an insult I will delete the insult.

If I edit a post as mod, I generally make a note about the edit at the end of the post. In some cases if the edit is sensitive or the violation particularly offensive, I message the user directly about it instead of airing it publicly.

There is a checkbox I have to check in order for it to show the "edited by" text, but I never think to check that box. It's not checked by default. If that box isn't checked it might not even show the "reason for edit" note. Mods see it, but it's possible general users don't and I have no way to tell. That probably applies to my own posts too, so if you see text in mine changing and no edit text, it's because I didn't think to check that box.

Like I just edited this post, and I see that it's edited and the reason. If you don't, then that "show edit" box not being checked is why.

Which specific post(s) are you referring to?

Thanks for clearing that up. I don’t want to put any particular person or their post on the spot, so I’ll message you about it.