On Thursday, popular social network Facebook started rolling out a nifty and useful feature which will enable the site's users to edit their old as well as new comments.

The new editing feature is essentially an enhanced version of Facebook's earlier launched ninja-edit setting that allowed the users of the social network to edit their comments by clicking `x' soon after having posted a comment.

The new editing feature will work in such a way that when the users post their comments, they will see a small pencil symbol on the right-hand side of the page. A click on the symbol will bring up the options for editing or the deletion of the users' comments.

In case the users edit their comments, their updated comment will include `edited' hyperlink. Other users who click on this hyperlink will be able to see all the earlier versions of the comment, including the original, unedited comment.

Facebook apparently believes that it is essential to preserve all the users' comments in the edit history forever so as to prevent them from totally altering their statements unbeknownst to their fellow users on the social networking site.

Noting that the users' edited history can be seen by all interested users, a Facebook spokeswoman said about the new editing feature: "If you don't want to show past versions, you can just delete it and re-comment as you would have before this feature."