Editing And Disjointed Discussions

In general, I agree with you that people editing their original posting to remove discussion, context, or to make themselves appear less foolish at the expense of others, is to be discouraged. Editing by non-moderators is time-stamped, and if people must edit their post after someone else has posted to the thread, common courtesy would be to include a note in your edit explaining the reason for the edit.

But the ability for non-moderators to edit their own posts does have it's uses, so I'm not sure a blanket ban is the most effective solution.

My wantlist thread, for instance, is something I perpetually re-edit the OP of; I've kept it going for a couple of years now. The "discussion" which follows the OP does appear a bit disjointed and mysterious, as some of the coins the early posters talk about have been removed from the list.

But then, the purpose of this particular thread isn't discussion, it's letting folks know what my wantlist is. I believe re-editing the OP is certainly a better option than either making people search through the thread for the latest version of the list or posting a new thread each time the list changes.

Of course, eventually, threads become archived, where no-one except perhaps the administrators can edit them. Threads in "busy" subforums get archived quicker than threads in quieter forums; some subforums never get archived at all.