machomuu
Stuck in Hot Girl Summer
- 10,507
- Posts
- 16
- Years
- She/Her
- Take a left, turn right at the next stop, bear lef
- Seen Nov 1, 2023
This is a feature that I've seen around pretty often but hadn't really thought to suggest here since I assumed it was due to some sort of limitation. More times than I can count I've seen posts get lost due to various circumstances. And this could be a number of things, from a temporary drop in an internet connection to the site being down to simply having been away long enough that you're given the reload warning.
In the case of post previews or using "Post Reply", it's generally not too big of a problem, since usually you can just go back and the post will be there with little to nothing having been lost in the process. I say usually because if there is a network connection error, there's the likely chance that you'll back out to an error message and boom, everything's gone. And to some extent, I think this is unavoidable.
If someone's making a small post then that's all there is to it, they'll likely be able to type it up again, no problem. But if you're writing a roleplay post or you're in a debate or you're trying to post your fully planned out hack idea, it's pretty soul crushing when it everything you've written is lost. And posts like these aren't uncommon- after all, this is a forum. While it's not really the site's fault when you do lose something like the above, no one's going to expect you to have your thought out point in a text document or on your clipboard in full when you didn't even know it was going to be that long in the first place.
To break away from this for a second, I want to talk about the first suggestion: Close Tab Warning Prompts. I can't count the number of times I've started on a post but, either through a misclick or through closing out a browser because it escaped my mind, the tab that I was working on the post in ended up vanishing (especially common in the case of Quick Replies). And I'm sure I'm not the only one that this has happened to, it's something that can happen so casually but can undo something that a fair amount of time was put into in an instant, and a lot of the time that ends with the post just not being made.
Having a closed tab that asks you whether you want to close a tab that has unposted work on it would be an absolute godsend. I can't vouch for the community as a whole (though if you do have that problem then please post about it), but I can definitely see this as being a strong quality of life addition, and assuming people find it intrusive I'd imagine it would be toggleable or there would be a simple "Don't show me this again" checkbox that would make sure they wouldn't have to be affected by it further.
Circling back to my previous point, assuming it wouldn't be too heavy of a load for PC, I think that if there was some sort of function to make it so that a user's post can be saved to some capacity for a certain length of time. I can understand why this would be more of a decision when it comes to implementation than the closed tab prompt, but I also feel that it would be a lot safer and would just make the site a comfier place to post on or even work, both in the case of the users and even in the case of the staff.
And finally, Timeout Warnings. This is mostly meant to make quick replies safer, but it does apply to the other reply functions as well to an extent. If you let a quick reply sit for any reason then after the timeout pretty much anything you do other than saving it to your clipboard and reloading (in that order) will result in a loss of the content. While it's generally not intentional that someone would leave a content sitting in the quick reply for a certain amount of time, it is pretty frustrating when you get called away for something, come back, remember that you have a reply just waiting to be posted and then lose it once you actually click the reply button. Worse when the reason you timed out was because you were posting the whole time (don't write RP posts in quick reply kids, it just leads to sadness and regret). But if there was some sort of prompt that told you "X minutes until this session times out, please use 'Preview Post' and continue," or, "Your session has timed out, copy your existing post and refresh the page to continue," something to that effect, it would give the user awareness of the state of things and allow them to react accordingly.
Additions like these, optional or otherwise, I feel would definitely do a lot to alleviate the frustration that comes from unexpected disturbances or what have you stopping the user from posting. While, again, I can't speak for the community as a whole, I've faced these situations that I discussed above more times than I can count over the past 9 years and even though this is, again, at no fault of the site itself, it would definitely improve the overall experience if we were provided with these safety cushions.
I know these are just the mad ramblings of some anime nerd, but thanks for hearing me out!
In the case of post previews or using "Post Reply", it's generally not too big of a problem, since usually you can just go back and the post will be there with little to nothing having been lost in the process. I say usually because if there is a network connection error, there's the likely chance that you'll back out to an error message and boom, everything's gone. And to some extent, I think this is unavoidable.
If someone's making a small post then that's all there is to it, they'll likely be able to type it up again, no problem. But if you're writing a roleplay post or you're in a debate or you're trying to post your fully planned out hack idea, it's pretty soul crushing when it everything you've written is lost. And posts like these aren't uncommon- after all, this is a forum. While it's not really the site's fault when you do lose something like the above, no one's going to expect you to have your thought out point in a text document or on your clipboard in full when you didn't even know it was going to be that long in the first place.
To break away from this for a second, I want to talk about the first suggestion: Close Tab Warning Prompts. I can't count the number of times I've started on a post but, either through a misclick or through closing out a browser because it escaped my mind, the tab that I was working on the post in ended up vanishing (especially common in the case of Quick Replies). And I'm sure I'm not the only one that this has happened to, it's something that can happen so casually but can undo something that a fair amount of time was put into in an instant, and a lot of the time that ends with the post just not being made.
Having a closed tab that asks you whether you want to close a tab that has unposted work on it would be an absolute godsend. I can't vouch for the community as a whole (though if you do have that problem then please post about it), but I can definitely see this as being a strong quality of life addition, and assuming people find it intrusive I'd imagine it would be toggleable or there would be a simple "Don't show me this again" checkbox that would make sure they wouldn't have to be affected by it further.
Circling back to my previous point, assuming it wouldn't be too heavy of a load for PC, I think that if there was some sort of function to make it so that a user's post can be saved to some capacity for a certain length of time. I can understand why this would be more of a decision when it comes to implementation than the closed tab prompt, but I also feel that it would be a lot safer and would just make the site a comfier place to post on or even work, both in the case of the users and even in the case of the staff.
And finally, Timeout Warnings. This is mostly meant to make quick replies safer, but it does apply to the other reply functions as well to an extent. If you let a quick reply sit for any reason then after the timeout pretty much anything you do other than saving it to your clipboard and reloading (in that order) will result in a loss of the content. While it's generally not intentional that someone would leave a content sitting in the quick reply for a certain amount of time, it is pretty frustrating when you get called away for something, come back, remember that you have a reply just waiting to be posted and then lose it once you actually click the reply button. Worse when the reason you timed out was because you were posting the whole time (don't write RP posts in quick reply kids, it just leads to sadness and regret). But if there was some sort of prompt that told you "X minutes until this session times out, please use 'Preview Post' and continue," or, "Your session has timed out, copy your existing post and refresh the page to continue," something to that effect, it would give the user awareness of the state of things and allow them to react accordingly.
Additions like these, optional or otherwise, I feel would definitely do a lot to alleviate the frustration that comes from unexpected disturbances or what have you stopping the user from posting. While, again, I can't speak for the community as a whole, I've faced these situations that I discussed above more times than I can count over the past 9 years and even though this is, again, at no fault of the site itself, it would definitely improve the overall experience if we were provided with these safety cushions.
I know these are just the mad ramblings of some anime nerd, but thanks for hearing me out!