The argument is this:
Either you should be able to edit your own posts forever because you own them
OR
You should only be able to edit them briefly because they belong to Wikipedia Review, and stand as a record
Secondly, if we agree that you do not own your own posts, and hence there should be a limit on your editing of them, then what time period should that be?
We are currently debating this as policy. At present people are allowed to edit their posts forever.
In the past, we have had a handful of users who, for whatever reason, became really angry at Wikipedia Review, or someone who posted here, and then deleted all of their posts or else most of their posts. The result of this is that if we then search for posts on particular subjects, some aspects of the thread simply don't make sense. This has even happened with the current SlimVirgin issue, where old threads are being used as research.
Obviously Wikipedia Review isn't trying to establish itself as a credible reference site - it is primarily a forum. However, in its capacity as a forum, we have researched many valuable and important issues, and have also researched many less important issues and brought these to light and brought attention to them until they became important. Most of the recent Wikipedia scandals have either been exposed by Wikipedia Review or else heavily investigated by Wikipedia Review. Anyone who wants to know what really happened in these scandals only needs to look back at our archives. But if there are posts which are deleted, redacted, or in hidden forums, it is difficult to do this.
On the other hand, there is another argument that is perhaps equally as compelling.
When you write a post, you may look at it later and think "hey I missed a bit out of that" or "hey I spelled something wrong", or even something as severe as "Oh dear I shouldn't have said that", and want to change it. Indeed, you may even want to wipe the post. I have done this many times myself here, and I am sure many others have too. Sometimes you write someone's personal details but then realise you shouldn't be doing that so you go back and remove it. Sometimes you write something that attacks someone, and then you want to take it back. And so forth.
And of course, it may well be that you don't realise this until much later. What if you are involved in a legal case, perhaps a defamation case, and you risk going to jail if you don't edit or delete a post? Shouldn't you have the right to delete it then? Or should you be forced to go to jail for something that you wrote? What if you didn't mean to write it? Most courts will argue that if you delete it later then you probably didn't mean to write it in the first place, and drop the charges against you for defamation. Indeed, what if it isn't a legal case, but rather a fight between friends, who have now made up? There are all sorts of scenarios that might come up.
And indeed, what if you become so upset with Wikipedia Review that you don't want to have your name associated with it anymore? What if you really want to have absolutely everything that you ever wrote wiped for good from the system? What if you want them to suffer and not be able to benefit from the wonderful research you did to advance their cause? Don't you have a right to retract your name from a professional project? Isn't there a right to disappear?
We had preliminary discussions on this, and were about 50/50, so we are going to open it up to everyone. If the majority of people agree that untimed edits should remain, then they will. If the majority of people think that there should be a time limit, then we will go with whichever time limit gets the most votes.
Secondly, there was a thought to introduce a new user level which would differentiate in only one way - the ability to have longer time to edit their posts (E.g. 24 hours vs forever). If you think that time limits should be imposed, do you also agree to this? Or if you think that they shouldn't be imposed, do you think that it'd be okay just for people who rarely post?