Improve draft feature, seriously!

[aliashraf]

I just lost like one hundred lines of text including a data sheet I was preparing to start a new topic in development & technical subforum because of the naive way the draft feature is implemented with.

I don't use other word processors when I'm posting here no matter how long and sophisticated is my post and takes how much time or effort to write it down and it puts me in danger of losing my content and to mitigate it I regularly use preview button because it is supposed to save a draft of my work in progress but when it comes to a sophisticated post that takes days to be ready things get more risky and you need to re-preview your work because of this:

Drafts are saved whenever you preview or post a topic, post, or PM. Up to 100 drafts are kept. Drafts are deleted after 7 days.

Fair enough, 100 drafts is not bad and automation is great idea but the implementation is a joke and put me in a huge trouble. It turned out that they mean it when they say whenever.  

WHENEVER you push postor preview  bottoms you get a draft and if you push this several times on the same subject (a post or a pm) you get one more and (it is really stupid) you can easily make 100 copies of the same thing saved as draft and because you can't have more than 100 drafts, you lose drafts of your works in progress.

It is what happened to me the other night when after a crash I tried to recover my work using this feature and I found that I've pushed post/preview buttons on few other posts too much (multiple edits) and I have a lot of stupid versions of same posts and I don't have any draft of my actual work in progress because of the pile of garbage this feature has produced and buried what I actually need as draft.

I think some tweaks would be very helpful:
1- Don't keep multiple drafts for a subject (post/pm) just keep the latest version.
2- Don't generate drafts for post operation.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

I think some tweaks would be very helpful:
1- Don't keep multiple drafts for a subject (post/pm) just keep the latest version.

There's a reason it's called a draft (preliminary stage of a written) sometimes you may want to recover your previous writing and with the draft that can be made possible. I once wrote a topic them preview it later I decided to edit my post before posting to make it more informative. I ended up deleting my last two paragraphs and when I preview again the sentences I added, sounded so dumb to me and I needed my old work back.  The draft because very useful and I got my previous work back so I don't support this suggestion of only keeping the latest preview.

For a draft to get filled up you need to be creating an average of 14.3 previews daily for a week so if that's the case then you need to slow down and get some rest.  No offends OP

[LoyceMobile]

I copy long posts to a file once in a while when long posts take a lot of time.
It's also useful if I ever mess it up editing later.

My Firefox usually restores open editing too when I restart it.
Have you checked your browser cache for a copy of your work?

[aliashraf]

I think some tweaks would be very helpful:
1- Don't keep multiple drafts for a subject (post/pm) just keep the latest version.

There's a reason it's called a draft (preliminary stage of a written) sometimes you may want to recover your previous writing and with the draft that can be made possible. I once wrote a topic them preview it later I decided to edit my post before posting to make it more informative. I ended up deleting my last two paragraphs and when I preview again the sentences I added, sounded so dumb to me and I needed my old work back.  The draft because very useful and I got my previous work back so I don't support this suggestion of only keeping the latest preview.

For a draft to get filled up you need to be creating an average of 14.3 previews daily for a week so if that's the case then you need to slow down and get some rest.  No offends OP

Not taken.
14.3 is nothing, I do a lot of edits and 7 days is nonsense.
For a serious writer it is completely possible to suspend writing a post for a while for may reasons, doing more research, finding some lost reference material, carrying out some calculations, re-thinking some points, ... it is more important use-case compared to simple redo. A compromise would be keeping a maximum of 3 last versions and removing the 7 days window for new posts/topics that are not committed yet.

I copy long posts to a file once in a while when long posts take a lot of time.
It's also useful if I ever mess it up editing later.

My Firefox usually restores open editing too when I restart it.
Have you checked your browser cache for a copy of your work?

You are right many browsers support restore feature but it doesn't work properly always and without it you get nothing.  

[LoyceV]

For a draft to get filled up you need to be creating an average of 14.3 previews daily for a week so if that's the case then you need to slow down and get some rest.

My oldest Draft is this one:

Code:

[b]Reserved for historic overview[/b]
1. http://loyce.club/trust/2019-01-25_Fri_22.33h
2. http://loyce.club/trust/2019-01-26_Sat_12.14h

(time and date are taken the moment I process the data (Amsterdam time), the data comes from the previous Saturday morning)

That was less than 21 hours ago.

A solution would be to increase the 100 drafts to 1000 drafts.

[CryptopreneurBrainboss]

A solution would be to increase the 100 drafts to 1000 drafts.

I still stand on my previous statement but I believe an increase of the draft storage capacity will be the best option just as LoyceV suggested.
All preview should be stored not just the latest preview.

[hilariousetc]

I just lost like one hundred lines of text including a data sheet I was preparing to start a new topic in development & technical subforum because of the naive way the draft feature is implemented with.

The only thing that is naive here is you relying on the forum to be a permanent archive of your various writings.

14.3 is nothing, I do a lot of edits and 7 days is nonsense.
For a serious writer it is completely possible to suspend writing a post for a while for may reasons, doing more research, finding some lost reference material, carrying out some calculations, re-thinking some points, ... it is more important use-case compared to simple redo. A compromise would be keeping a maximum of 3 last versions and removing the 7 days window for new posts/topics that are not committed yet.

If you're serious about writing anything then you shouldn't be relying on the forum to save all your work for you, especially not ones 'in progress' and being constantly revised. Use a word processor like everyone else then preview it here to see how it looks. You should always have back ups of anything digital that is important and this is nobody else's fault other than your own.

[SplitBirb]

I just lost like one hundred lines of text including a data sheet I was preparing to start a new topic in development & technical subforum because of the naive way the draft feature is implemented with.

The only thing that is naive here is you relying on the forum to be a permanent archive of your various writings.

14.3 is nothing, I do a lot of edits and 7 days is nonsense.
For a serious writer it is completely possible to suspend writing a post for a while for may reasons, doing more research, finding some lost reference material, carrying out some calculations, re-thinking some points, ... it is more important use-case compared to simple redo. A compromise would be keeping a maximum of 3 last versions and removing the 7 days window for new posts/topics that are not committed yet.

If you're serious about writing anything then you shouldn't be relying on the forum to save all your work for you, especially not ones 'in progress' and being constantly revised. Use a word processor like everyone else then preview it here to see how it looks. You should always have back ups of anything digital that is important and this is nobody else's fault other than your own.

I have to agree with this comment. If writing something important it's best to use a word processor.  For example when I wrote this article I used Microsoft Word:
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=5101853

I would not rely solely on draft as other things can happen such as internet disconnect or other issues.  Just my recommendation when writing longer more important posts.

[aliashraf]

I just lost like one hundred lines of text including a data sheet I was preparing to start a new topic in development & technical subforum because of the naive way the draft feature is implemented with.

The only thing that is naive here is you relying on the forum to be a permanent archive of your various writings.

14.3 is nothing, I do a lot of edits and 7 days is nonsense.
For a serious writer it is completely possible to suspend writing a post for a while for may reasons, doing more research, finding some lost reference material, carrying out some calculations, re-thinking some points, ... it is more important use-case compared to simple redo. A compromise would be keeping a maximum of 3 last versions and removing the 7 days window for new posts/topics that are not committed yet.

If you're serious about writing anything then you shouldn't be relying on the forum to save all your work for you, especially not ones 'in progress' and being constantly revised. Use a word processor like everyone else then preview it here to see how it looks. You should always have back ups of anything digital that is important and this is nobody else's fault other than your own.

Not my style. Writing for me is not such a 'cold' process. I need to feel the temp and the atmosphere I use word processors for writing articles not forum posts, it just doesn't work for me. Additionally I use a lot of formatting features, I mean a LOT.

As of what is naive I think implementing a feature in the most trivial and lazy way is naive. Once you are ready to allocate 100 post space for drafting you need to define and implement it better than what is done here:
"Push either preview or post buttons and I'll push some garbage on the pile of other garbages for you and it is called drafting in my dictionary"
Lame!

[Welsh]

Not my style. Writing for me is not such a 'cold' process. I need to feel the temp and the atmosphere I use word processors for writing articles not forum posts, it just doesn't work for me. Additionally I use a lot of formatting features, I mean a LOT.

As of what is naive I think implementing a feature in the most trivial and lazy way is naive. Once you are ready to allocate 100 post space for drafting you need to define and implement it better than what is done here:
"Push either preview or post buttons and I'll push some garbage on the pile of other garbages for you and it is called drafting in my dictionary"
Lame!

I understand your frustration, and sure it could be easy to implement something like this. However, throughout life you should never rely on a third party. Take a leaf out of Bitcoin's book! You can still write it here on the forum, but just make your own backups periodically. Maybe, with long posts change up your style, and format after to make it easier. It's much easier than losing all of that work, and having to redo it all.

[hilariousetc]

Not my style. Writing for me is not such a 'cold' process. I need to feel the temp and the atmosphere I use word processors for writing articles not forum posts, it just doesn't work for me. Additionally I use a lot of formatting features, I mean a LOT.

As of what is naive I think implementing a feature in the most trivial and lazy way is naive. Once you are ready to allocate 100 post space for drafting you need to define and implement it better than what is done here:
"Push either preview or post buttons and I'll push some garbage on the pile of other garbages for you and it is called drafting in my dictionary"
Lame!

Well it may or may not be your style but your style has quite clearly cost you in this instance so I think you should look at adapting your stance. Some people like to live recklessly and sometimes they pay the ultimate price for that behaviour (or lack of precaution). The draft feature is there just as a temporary courtesy and not an indefinite archive. It didn't even use to exist a while ago until theymos implemented it, but was added as a helpful feature so we have at least some sort of back up when drafting or submitting a post (sometimes posts didn't go through and we lost them completely before), but it really shouldn't be relied upon as an extensive history of every draft you might make, and again, you really should have back ups if it's important. If you must write the thing on here then save it in a word processor after just in case, but if that's still just not your style then you may run into these issues again. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

[aliashraf]

Not my style. Writing for me is not such a 'cold' process. I need to feel the temp and the atmosphere I use word processors for writing articles not forum posts, it just doesn't work for me. Additionally I use a lot of formatting features, I mean a LOT.

As of what is naive I think implementing a feature in the most trivial and lazy way is naive. Once you are ready to allocate 100 post space for drafting you need to define and implement it better than what is done here:
"Push either preview or post buttons and I'll push some garbage on the pile of other garbages for you and it is called drafting in my dictionary"
Lame!

Well it may or may not be your style but your style has quite clearly cost you in this instance so I think you should look at adapting your stance. Some people like to live recklessly and sometimes they pay the ultimate price for that behaviour (or lack of precaution). The draft feature is there just as a temporary courtesy and not an indefinite archive. It didn't even use to exist a while ago until theymos implemented it, but was added as a helpful feature so we have at least some sort of back up when drafting or submitting a post (sometimes posts didn't go through and we lost them completely before), but it really shouldn't be relied upon as an extensive history of every draft you might make, and again, you really should have back ups if it's important. If you must write the thing on here then save it in a word processor after just in case, but if that's still just not your style then you may run into these issues again. Hope for the best, prepare for the worst.

It has nothing to do with being reckless, you are absolutely wrong. It is about creative writing which I am realizing that you don't understand it at all. Writing in discussion forums is not just an act of expressing  some pre-installed ideas, it is also an artistic and sophisticated social behavior and as a writer I need my space to be more intimate and integrated.

As of costs and risks involved:
I've been posting in this forum for a while and have published more than 1000 posts a majority of them being long posts and many of them have took days to be ready for posting and I have never followed your recommended approach to use a separate word processor not even once. The other night, after 3 years of contributing to discussions, for the first time ever I lost my browser cash accidentally and despite my intentional use of preview/draft feature the server couldn't help me recovering my work because it is naively designed and implemented.
So, what? I should have been jumping between two editors for years  to prevent this? Thanks but no. I'm fine but wasn't life easier if theymous would've written like 10 lines of code to give us a smarter drafting support?

[hilariousetc]

It has nothing to do with being reckless, you are absolutely wrong. It is about creative writing which I am realizing that you don't understand it at all. Writing in discussion forums is not just an act of expressing  some pre-installed ideas, it is also an artistic and sophisticated social behavior and as a writer I need my space to be more intimate and integrated.

Oh do shut up and get off your high horse. This has absolutely nothing to do with creativity or understanding it. I honestly don't know whether you're trolling now because I'm struggling to accept you can be so stupid (especially to someone who cares so much about their "creativity" and writing). You are completely reckless if you solely rely on a web forum to preserve your precious writings for all of eternity. Do authors and noble poets write their masterpieces on web forums and rely on the draft feature to archive them? No. They use a computer. Or paper. And I'm guessing both parties are not dumb enough to only have one copy in existence. And if they do and they get stolen or their house burns down then they're at fault. Back up your shit. Back up your writings, back up your bitcoins, back up your mp3s and for god's sake certainly back up your porn.

As of costs and risks involved:
I've been posting in this forum for a while and have published more than 1000 posts a majority of them being long posts and many of them have took days to be ready for posting and I have never followed your recommended approach to use a separate word processor not even once. The other night, after 3 years of contributing to discussions, for the first time ever I lost my browser cash accidentally and despite my intentional use of preview/draft feature the server couldn't help me recovering my work because it is naively designed and implemented.
So, what? I should have been jumping between two editors for years  to prevent this? Thanks but no. I'm fine but wasn't life easier if theymous would've written like 10 lines of code to give us a smarter drafting support?

I don't care how many posts you've written. Your carelessness has now costs you. You might be able to fuck ten thousand people without a condom and never catch an STD. Until you do. You just screwed up. Protect your shit.

Anyway, it's your own damn fault you lost your posts and use a word processor in the future. Or don't. But don't complain when your content goes bye-bye because you're the only one at fault.

[SplitBirb]

Love this forum! Always get some good laughs.

[aliashraf]

It has nothing to do with being reckless, you are absolutely wrong. It is about creative writing which I am realizing that you don't understand it at all. Writing in discussion forums is not just an act of expressing  some pre-installed ideas, it is also an artistic and sophisticated social behavior and as a writer I need my space to be more intimate and integrated.

Oh do shut up and get off your high horse. This has absolutely nothing to do with creativity or understanding it. I honestly don't know whether you're trolling now because I'm struggling to accept you can be so stupid (especially to someone who cares so much about their "creativity" and writing). You are completely reckless if you solely rely on a web forum to preserve your precious writings for all of eternity. Do authors and noble poets write their masterpieces on web forums and rely on the draft feature to archive them? No. They use a computer. Or paper. And I'm guessing both parties are not dumb enough to only have one copy in existence. And if they do and they get stolen or their house burns down then they're at fault. Back up your shit. Back up your writings, back up your bitcoins, back up your mp3s and for god's sake certainly back up your porn.

As of costs and risks involved:
I've been posting in this forum for a while and have published more than 1000 posts a majority of them being long posts and many of them have took days to be ready for posting and I have never followed your recommended approach to use a separate word processor not even once. The other night, after 3 years of contributing to discussions, for the first time ever I lost my browser cash accidentally and despite my intentional use of preview/draft feature the server couldn't help me recovering my work because it is naively designed and implemented.
So, what? I should have been jumping between two editors for years  to prevent this? Thanks but no. I'm fine but wasn't life easier if theymous would've written like 10 lines of code to give us a smarter drafting support?

I don't care how many posts you've written. Your carelessness has now costs you. You might be able to fuck ten thousand people without a condom and never catch an STD. Until you do. You just screwed up. Protect your shit.

Anyway, it's your own damn fault you lost your posts and use a word processor in the future. Or don't. But don't complain when your content goes bye-bye because you're the only one at fault.

Now you are bullshitting about backups and how great they are like you are teaching niggas in your dad's farms. Get your shits together and stay calm  

We are not talking about backups are you dumb? You proposed using Word and I tried to convince you it is not good for me, you insisted and made a fool of yourself.

FYI I make regular backups of my shit but not every single hour,  and a good drafting service would help me to do it more seamlessly: I could do a copy/paste/save operation every night and a preview operation much more frequently and I need preview button to save a draft for me more conveniently and smartly, still switching between Word and btctalk is not an option, don't be such a stupid arrogant troll and stop bullshitting about what you don't understand.

[actmyname]

Now you are bullshitting about backups and how great they are like you are teaching niggas in your dad's farms. Get your shits together and stay calm  

What the fuck?

^W_C^h_a^a_n^t_'^'_t^s _f^t_i^h_n^e_{i s}^p_h^r_:^{o b}_l^l_e^e_a^m_{v e}^{w i}_i^t_t^h _o^s_p^t_e^a_n^{r t}_oⁱ_r^{n g}_{r e}^o_tⁿ_u^e_{r n}^{p o}_t^s_o^t _t^a_h^t_e ^a_{d r}^t_aⁱ_f^m_t^e_.^?

When I handle excessively-long posts or multiple posts and I need to leave I'll copy the contents into a file.I'm not entirely sure how much it'll cost the forum to change the drafting service.

[aliashraf]

I'm not entirely sure how much it'll cost the forum to change the drafting service.

it costs a couple of days discussing, a couple of hours thinking/reviewing, few minutes coding and a couple of days code review/testing. Period.

[actmyname]

it costs a couple of days discussing, a couple of hours thinking/reviewing, few minutes coding and a couple of days code review/testing. Period.

Regarding storage. Though I do suppose that you could instead change the draft feature to 100 unique thread replies/edits. (i.e. message ID or new replies to given threads)

[aliashraf]

it costs a couple of days discussing, a couple of hours thinking/reviewing, few minutes coding and a couple of days code review/testing. Period.

Regarding storage. Though I do suppose that you could instead change the draft feature to 100 unique thread replies/edits. (i.e. message ID or new replies to given threads)

OR we could just treat fresh posts differently letting them
1- To stay a lot more in draft status
2- being maintained as a single instance (overwriting previous instance)
While we keep a limited number of latest versions ( 3 for instance) of each (already saved) post edit history.

Such a policy would help keeping track of drafts for much longer periods of time and for more posts at the same time without new storage requirement. The key would be distinguishing between edit and new operations, not a big deal imo.

[hilariousetc]

Now you are bullshitting about backups and how great they are like you are teaching niggas in your dad's farms. Get your shits together and stay calm  

We are not talking about backups are you dumb? You proposed using Word and I tried to convince you it is not good for me, you insisted and made a fool of yourself.

FYI I make regular backups of my shit but not every single hour,  and a good drafting service would help me to do it more seamlessly: I could do a copy/paste/save operation every night and a preview operation much more frequently and I need preview button to save a draft for me more conveniently and smartly, still switching between Word and btctalk is not an option, don't be such a stupid arrogant troll and stop bullshitting about what you don't understand.

Multiple Lols. The only person who is making a fool of himself is the guy who stupidly lost content. Word isn't good enough for you but losing posts is? Fine. Have it your way. Content gone. All this could have been simply avoided but you think this forum owes you a bespoke drafting feature. It doesn't. You lost content because of your own naivety and foolishness. Posting that content in a word document or notepad would have solved all your problems but apparently writing or copy and pasting into something other than this forum is too much work and wholly unacceptable. Well great job, you lost your stuff and it doesn't look like you'll learn your lesson. Meanwhile, I'll keep anything important that I may need in a notepad or word document like I have been doing for years and I've never had these issues. Seriously, you need to get over yourself and your refusal to use anything else to make sure your content is safe and saved elsewhere otherwise you only have yourself to blame.