Someone brought up a problem because they didn't like what they saw happening. The moderators and I discussed it, I made a decision after giving it some thought. Legitimate and helpful reasons for modifying a post, like the one that started this thread, as well as some harmful ones were discussed. I, and I alone, decided the harmful results could far outweigh the beneficial ones and set the time period.

Basically my feeling is 24 hours is plenty of time to regret and modify or delete something posted in the heat of the moment. More time just invites abuse the people who have already read what was written, and perhaps responded to, will never notice. Threads take a direction for a reason. Remove/modify any part of that reason and those who responded to the original post end up sounding stupid.

I never expected anyone wrote anything thinking they could just take it back when no one was looking.

That said, I apologize for not pointing out the change when it happened.