The only reason I can imagine edit revisions being useful is to delineate when likes were applied to a comment.
I imagine that edits within the first 4 or 5 minutes would still be considered ‘draft’ and not recorded as proper edits, so the ability to fine tune a comment without people seeing the mistakes common to a quick blurb wouldn’t hang around to potentially embarrass.
I can imagine that an edit history would make trolling ever so slightly more difficult, removing the ability to construct a likeable comment then change it to drek after attracting some likes. However, it occurs to me that the community here is fairly resilient to such misuse without the history being visible.
I have seen the tactic used on other sites, and in fact it was one of the main reasons I left one other community in particular. In that community, people would either change their argument to force a negative interpretation on what you had written or even just delete the substance of the comment if they had been served a particularly thorough rinsing.
…I sometimes hesitate, and mostly try never, to add or delete content once it has attracted even one like, I might be less inclined to follow that pattern if I knew people could see what had happened in-comment. But that’s the extent of my imagination on the topic.
Edit (in draft)
Just realised I lambasted the site by name above but can’t make an edit revision to help them retain a shred of dignity.
