[SUGGESTION] Drafts Page

[bitmover]

Hello,

I would like to use more our drafts page. However, for now, it is almost useless to me.
I think that a better draft platform will incentive posters to elaborate their posts and topics more carefully.

For now, to save a draft we need to click Preview. It automatically saves it in this  page, where drafts are kept for 7 days only. Up to 100 drafts can be saved.

https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?action=drafts

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.

In my opinion, saving 100 drafts is completely unnecessary and deleting them after 7 days defeats the whole purpose of drafts.
7 days is a short period, and people may forget about a draft and lose it. I believe most users simple this draft page, because it is too risky to lose your work.

If it were possible to choose 1 to 5 drafts to be saved permanently or at least for a few months, it would be amazing and I believe more people would use this feature.

Thoughts?

[1714805388]

1714805388

[jackg]

When I need to draft stuff I normally use notepad or a built in text editor to keep a copy of what I want to write and just have the going as it is...

I'm not sure about the drafts page, I think it's more of something we have just kept from SMF and it's main purpose is to find out what your topic was if it gets trashed by a moderator or something (IMO) and sometimes it might be helpful if you want to draft a lot in one go and leave it there to post in a  few hours/days.

[Coyster]

I think that a better draft platform will incentive posters to elaborate their posts and topics more carefully.

You may have a point here, but I think 7 days span is enough time for one to make changes, elaborate and proofread thier topics or posts, for me the draft system works pretty fine as any post that probably can't be edited and made ready within 7 days should then be saved elsewhere,(outside the forum) then whenever ready can be posted on the forum.

[actmyname]

If it's important enough to keep after 7 days, it's important enough to use in an external editor.

[pugman]

If it were possible to choose 1 to 5 drafts to be saved permanently or at least for a few months, it would be amazing and I believe more people would use this feature.

Thoughts?

Any particular reason why you'd like need to save a post as a draft and not post it for months?

I can guarantee you that not many people use the drafts feature or even care about it, so this whole feature exploration thing would only happen for a handful of people , if it were to ever happen.

If the main reason for this is for getting access to your deleted posts, then the more better solution would be to get pms for all of the deleted messages instead of a select few.

[bitmover]

When I need to draft stuff I normally use notepad or a built in text editor to keep a copy of what I want to write and just have the going as it is...

If it's important enough to keep after 7 days, it's important enough to use in an external editor.

I can guarantee you that not many people use the drafts feature or even care about it, so this whole feature exploration thing would only happen for a handful of people , if it were to ever happen.

What you guys are saying is basically "as nobody uses it, it is fine the way it is, just use an external editor". Wasn't this page supposed to be used? And just automatically saving drafts at random and deleting them after 7 days is pretty useless IMO.

I think we have an internal draft page, that could be put to use just by changing a few lines of code.
It is useless as it is, because it doesn't allow you proper manage your drafts (delete, save, copy, duplicate, etc)

I use an external editor also. But hey, we have one here. We can't we make it useful?

Any particular reason why you'd like need to save a post as a draft and not post it for months?

Yes, I can think of many uses for that. Don't you use your e-mail drafts page?

Few time ago I wrote a draft of an enormous posts, which I put some effort in formatting. I was lazy and decided to finish it later (as I needed to wait for someone's response before publishing. I saved the file in notepad, but my laptop was stolen.... If drafts were different...

[Welsh]

If it's important enough to keep after 7 days, it's important enough to use in an external editor.

This is my stance on things. When creating my reporting thread that wasn't primarily kept on the forum drafts, and I only used it to preview it to find any formatting issues. Other than that it was created in a text editor, and saved periodically. I think the drafts feature is good enough as it is, and we don't really need anymore functionality to it.

[finaleshot2016]

I think that a better draft platform will incentive posters to elaborate on their posts and topics more carefully.

I think preview was already a good tool for us to check if there are wrong on our statements or posts.
Since we barely use the drafts then I think we don't have to issue any development about drafts.

In my opinion, saving 100 drafts is completely unnecessary and deleting them after 7 days defeats the whole purpose of drafts.
7 days is a short period, and people may forget about a draft and lose it. I believe most users simple this draft page because it is too risky to lose your work.

I always post some quality topics in our local board and also posted some of my services that consists of graphic design. Then, I'll try to check on preview if there are errors on my thread. I didn't come up to the point that there are already 100 drafts in my draft section so I think it's really impossible.

If you've thought something good then remember the main idea of that topic then try to post it as soon as possible. You don't need to save it on drafts, all of those ideas will come out by the means of remembering the main idea. I only find the preview tool very useful and if I've got any emergencies during creating some post, drafts are there for you.

[LoyceV]

In my opinion, saving 100 drafts is completely unnecessary

Each time you click "Preview", a new draft is saved. That means you'll quickly reach 100, my oldest draft is often barely a day old (meaning 100 new ones were saved in a day).
As a result, I barely use the draft page indeed, unless I want to find back something that I accidentally didn't post yet.

I often keep a few long posts open on separate tabs in my browser, but save each of them into a text-file. I keep versions too, I just add the latest version to the bottom of the file instead of overwriting it.
I've lost some unfinished posts when closing my browser before I was finished. Most of the time, restarting my browser would restore unfinished posts in open tabs, but that doesn't work all the time.

Any particular reason why you'd like need to save a post as a draft and not post it for months?

I can answer that Some topics take a lot of time to create (including waiting for data processing). I like to start the topic while my ideas are still fresh.

[bitmover]

This is my stance on things. When creating my reporting thread that wasn't primarily kept on the forum drafts, and I only used it to preview it to find any formatting issues.

Yes, this is an additional point. You cannot format your post properly using an external editor, as tables, quotes, links, etc may work slightly different here than in your editor which cannot generate previews.

Since we barely use the drafts then I think we don't have to issue any development about drafts.

It is the other way around. People don't use it because it is poorly designed and doesn't fit user's needs.

Each time you click "Preview", a new draft is saved. That means you'll quickly reach 100, my oldest draft is often barely a day old (meaning 100 new ones were saved in a day).
As a result, I barely use the draft page indeed, unless I want to find back something that I accidentally didn't post yet.

Yes, this is the case to me. I only use the draft page by accident. If my browser crashed I can recover my post. But that shouldn't be the only use of the drafts page.

[Harlot]

I myself personally don't review my drafts after 7 days, just think of the conversation thay has passed when you are mastering that one post you were supposed to post 3-4 days ago. If we are talking about OP posts being created then that would be another thing and I think maybe extending another week in this situation would be best. I doubt people even revisit their draft pages drequently I'm pretty sure that they'll rather posts and edit it after rather than perfect it in the draft page.

[dkbit98]

Would be nice if we could edit drafts manually.
Erase them or keep drafts we need.

Drafts can be used more for sure, but I think most users don't even know where to find them.

[pugman]

What you guys are saying is basically "as nobody uses it, it is fine the way it is, just use an external editor". Wasn't this page supposed to be used? And just automatically saving drafts at random and deleting them after 7 days is pretty useless IMO.

I think we have an internal draft page, that could be put to use just by changing a few lines of code.
It is useless as it is, because it doesn't allow you proper manage your drafts (delete, save, copy, duplicate, etc)

I use an external editor also. But hey, we have one here. We can't we make it useful?

Drafts are like intended for a super-temporary-emergency backup for the posts you make or preview before posting. I believe one of the main reasons of these whole drafts being a temporary 7 day thing is because of the excess storage it'd take up, and also cause it'd be useless if the whole thing is only useful for like a handful of people, while the rest of the userbase not giving 2 shits about it. While the feature could be definitely useful,its not something we would likely see on this forum, but maybe on the new one, but who knows when its officially going to come out. sadPeepoClown.

[Welsh]

Would be nice if we could edit drafts manually.
Erase them or keep drafts we need.

Drafts can be used more for sure, but I think most users don't even know where to find them.

It does state where you can find them on the post editing page right below the "post", and "preview" buttons. Shouldn't be too hard to miss, but generally I don't think they're needed to be used by the majority of users, and are there only for a just in case scenario. Managing our own drafts probably isn't needed as up to 100(?) drafts can be stored, and they get deleted automatically.