A "draft" option when creating threads.

I had to send a ton of emails today at work. Some I wrote and sent immediately, othersI started and saved in "draft" (Outlook) to send later when I had all the information that I wanted to convey.

It got me thinking.

I have ideas for threads, and while I could keep a working file on my home computer, how hard would it be to create a draft option in creating threads? It might give the oppourtunity to further develop and increase thread quality if there was a designated option in that area.

Just a thought. I could be way off base, but how hard would it be?

reply to post by beezzer


You are talking about an entirely new database to hold hundreds of thousands of pages of text from all our members....

Not that it would be hard, more like would be so much more for the servers to deal with, and space wise...

Or I could be completely wrong, but seems like it would be expensive, and really unnecessary in the end as we all have a word processor. Besides, I would rather keep my more crazy thread ideas on physical storage than in some "cloud".

~Tenth

reply to post by tothetenthpower
Appreciate the reply. Was unsure of the requirements. Perhaps then this wouldn't be such a good idea.

reply to post by beezzer


Like I said, I'm probably entirely wrong, I'm sure an Admin or another mod with better experience will be capable of a more defining answer.

This is a great idea, actually. It could be applied to posts as well.

Somehow though, I don't think most users would use it. I mean, have you seen the majority of the threads here lately? It is glaringly obvious that very little thought or analysis was put into most of them. It's usually incoherent rambling, with zero initial extrapolation, zero mathematical proofs (if applicable), and/or zero Youtube "evidence" (if applicable).

That moderator refers to the possible need for an "entirely new database", which doesn't sound entirely accurate. If anything, they (ATS admins) would have to optimize and modify their custom forum software, and update (not re-write) the database accordingly.

His concerns bout expense or capacity are valid though.

reply to post by inivux
Concerns about costs aside (though valid) wouldn't it increase the quality of posts and threads if people had th option of developing thier replies?

Just thinking outloud (as it were) but I'm thinking of quality.

Best thing would be to create a Word Document. If you need to have access from home or work, use a jump drive...

Many people do this, including myself.

reply to post by beezzer
I'm saying most people use this site as a trash bin for their one off ideas. They don't care about them enough to develop them before writing them out. They develop them as the thread goes along.

The threads with well thought out, well written, evidence laden first posts are few and far between.

reply to post by greeneyedleo
I do that now. But when I (personally) am TDY, I don't always have that option.

Thanks, though, for your input.

Originally posted by inivux
reply to post by beezzer

 

I'm saying most people use this site as a trash bin for their one off ideas. They don't care about them enough to develop them before writing them out. They develop them as the thread goes along.

The threads with well thought out, well written, evidence laden first posts are few and far between.

edit on 13-1-2012 by inivux because: (no reason given)

edit on 13-1-2012 by inivux because: (no reason given)

And thats a damned shame. I try to put an effort into threads. It's a matter of personal pride for me.

reply to post by beezzer
It is quite unfortunate. I personally haven't seen your threads, but thank you for attempting to incite legitimate discussion with "properly" written first posts.

Originally posted by inivux
reply to post by beezzer

 

It is quite unfortunate. I personally haven't seen your threads, but thank you for attempting to incite legitimate discussion with "properly" written first posts.

Please don't go by my most recent posts. I actually used the term McPhlegm in one.

reply to post by beezzer


I know that we don't often agree on a subject but I too think that having the option to save unfinished work in some kind of a draft folder would be great.

I had often wondered how some of the better threads like "All Roads Lead To Rome" were put together without it. I can't tell you how many times I might be in the process of writing a thread and/or post when I get interrupted and I'm forced to either post an incomplete response or none at all.

I'm no expert in data storage but you'd think that it wouldn't be that hard to develop a system where drafts are saved into a folder just like photos and the like. Anyway, I think it sounds like a good idea that the site owners should at least consider.

Thanks for presenting the idea to the ATS owners, who knows, they may like it. Even though stars are not allowed in this type of thread, I feel it's more than deserving of a flag. Thanks again.

reply to post by beezzer


I think writing a thread in word is the best option. You can save it and work on it whenever you want to and, if you need access to it from other computers, either E-mail a draft to yourself or get a USB drive or something to save it on.

When I do this, I always check it by opening a random thread, hitting reply and copy and pasting the whole thread into the reply box and then hitting preview to make sure all the pics and links and ex tags and whatnot turn out right before posting. Then I hit the back button and go to forums and post the thread wherever I think it belongs (until the mods move it somewhere else ).

I do it in a random thread so, if I accidentally hit POST before I am ready, I can just edit the post inside a thread and get rid of the whole thing instead of having a new thread created with my not ready yet for prime time thread.

I've also found that, by copy and pasting an entire thread into the text box, you can avoid the character limit and make the thread (or post) as long as you want. Although, if you try to make changes after you paste the whole thing in, the extra text will be cut off so, if it doesn't turn out right, you have to go back to your Word document and make the changes there and then re-paste the whole document back in to the text box until you get it right.

reply to post by FortAnthem
I use that process now.

I'm just thinking of ways to simplify.

Appreciate the input, however.

reply to post by Flatfish
Thanks!

I always appreciate your candor.

reply to post by FortAnthem


I write it up on ATS and then copy and paste it word as well. It's soo much easier that way I've found.

What I always do is open up a thread posting page like this one for example (that way if I accidentally hit post it won't post as the title is never filled in until I need to post), start writing up, add all the neccesary bb codes and so on, then when I've done enough or I've wrote up too much for the character limit I just copy and paste it into word and then save it.

Then I start writing the next post and do the same as above.

When it comes to posting the whole thing I just copy and paste whatever will fit, post the thread, go back to word, copy and paste the entire thread, come back to the thread I just posted, hit edit and then copy and paste the full thread in - There's no character limit that way.

In reply to Beezzer - Nice idea still. Continually looking for ways to make thing's easier or that little bit more user-friendly can only be a good thing really.

Pro- And Con-scription

Ironically enough, some years back we actually did have a draft option for our posts, but I vaguely recall there were some issues with it and it ultimately ended up not being included in subsequent versions of the board software.

Like a lot of features, it may have been removed simply for performance reasons, because for quite a while, Bill was shaving off every bottleneck he could just to make it possible for ATS to keep up with demand (traffic sometimes has a way of going up faster than money can be pulled together for new resources).

I forget what the problems were, but I remember using the feature with mixed results. We also, for the longest time, had a very nasty bug where if you made edits to a post and then previewed them, the changes weren't updated in the input box and you lost the edits (). Needless to say, I'm glad we're not seeing that bug anymore.

Even when we had the draft feature, however, it was still possible to lose post data if there was some sort of error submitting the form to the server, and if your browser went back to a previous page, you lost everything entered.

As far as I know, that's still a danger, but I think it's an issue inherent to how the post input forms are laid out and updated, and may not be easy to change in the software.

Dodging The Draft

Whatever the case, I'm also in the camp of recommending the use of an external text editor for composing posts as a precaution, because even if ATS had all the bells and whistles we could imagine, if a browser or connection problem prevents data from reaching the ATS servers, we can still lose it.

The simplest method for protecting post data is to select and copy text before updating the post form (CTRL-A to Select All, CTRL-C to Copy, CTRL-X to Cut, CTRL-V to Paste and CTRL-Z to Undo for Windows users; CMD-A, CMD-C, CMD-X, CMD-V and CMD-Z for Mac users). Even without an external text editor, that method can be used to store a copy of valuable text in the computer's clipboard buffer, just in case.

I'm pretty much habituated to doing that on ATS and on any forum I post to, because I live in a remote, undisclosed location where connection problems are common, and it's possible to lose data posting to any forum.

I also, like a lot of ATSers, use a separate word processor for composing posts. It's an extra step, but it allows for a lot more flexibility, gives me a way to save drafts or "masterpiece" posts on my computer for later reference, and also provides spell-checking, formatting and macro functionality I can use to make these ridiculously long posts of mine a little more polished.

It's possible a future version of the ATS software may bring back the draft, but even then, I'll still be using a separate word processor (Notepad++ is my weapon of choice) no matter what.

My tuppence, YMMV.