A note about sources...

Have you ever written a long story to find the source link is formatted in a way to break the link? I just had that with a story which was pushing 1,200 words. An interesting story too...deleted and trashed because the idiots who run the site that it would have come from seem to structure their URL's in a way that can't be read. Not all of them though, so it's pure lack of competency and ability to do their jobs in designing it, not so much a matter of meaning to do it. (intentional would be rude...accidental is stupidity on steroids for a fair traffic news site that lives and dies by it's degree of user friendly operation)

Names aren't important and I'm not getting into what site it was. Suffice it to say it's off the beaten path a bit, but not that far off.

So, I'd suggest this for everyone. Enter your source URL as a link to preview and test...BEFORE going to actually write the story with commentary. Make sure the stupid thing will work. Now of course, I dumped the offending morons off my news bookmarks after confirming it was chaotic for the issue and not on just one as an 'oops' either. That still doesn't get back 30 minutes of my life and it stinks.

So.... A moment's testing can save an hours work. Something to consider while I get back to real work and stew awhile on the story that never will be, now. ARG!

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

Sorry you lost your work, especially to 3rd party mistakes.

I haven't been able to use preview since the new format change so that's not going to help me much. Also the reason for my many edits.

That sounds like a real pain in the arse, It would have been a lot more than half an hour for MR. slow poke here on the keyboard.

But at the same time the folks that read this thread will remember your advice and it will save many hassles down the road for the members.

As mentioned above I too find the preview button out of order at this time, so I guess you could copy and paste the URL to WordPad or whatever and test it there before actually writing your post.

On a similar note but off topic a bit I keep burning myself when I post a thread by forgetting to put a title in and hitting enter.....Ouch same result.

I don't believe I have ever had a bad URL but rest assured your experience is firmly planted in this old noggin.

Regards, Iwinder

structure their URL's in a way that can't be read.

can you explain that to me.

a reply to: Bassago
The preview button is now working for me, first time in days and days.
Regards, Iwinder

a reply to: Wrabbit2000

Is it when they put brackets, because that's happened to me too.

a reply to: brazenalderpadrescorpio

Oh that's frustrating. I certainly can't OP a thread without linked support of whatever it's about and before this started happening, dropping in sources usually just came at the end as a natural thing.

Oh well... always adapting I suppose..