1. A system for improving the functionality of a computing device participating in a distributed coauthoring environment by enabling translations of a position specified by a remote edit to account for a simultaneous modification that has already been incorporated into a local instance of a document being coauthored with real-time updates, comprising: a processor; and a memory device including instructions which when executed by the processor cause the system to provide a coauthoring engine including: an incorporation module operable to incorporate the remote edit into the local instance of the document being coauthored; a receiver module, operable to receive an indication of a real-time update, the indication of the real-time update including the remote edit, wherein the remote edit specifies a position in the document being coauthored to be incorporated; a translation module in communication with the incorporation module, operable to determine whether the remote edit is upstream of the simultaneous modification, in response to determining that the remote edit is upstream of the simultaneous modification, the translation module being operable to signal the incorporation module to incorporate the remote edit at the specified position; and in response to determining that the remote edit is downstream of the simultaneous modification, the translation module being operable to calculate a translated position to incorporate the remote edit in the local instance based on the specified position and an amount of content affected by the simultaneous modification, and the translation module being operable to signal the incorporation module to incorporate the remote edit at the translated position.