http://qs1969.pair.com?node_id=333856


in reply to 'show as entered' option for poorly formatted posts.

This is a nice option that would lower the barrier for newcomers.

I am not sure it is such a good idea though: usually if someone doesn't use the preview, doesn't see that their post doesn't look right and doesn't try to fix it, I see that as a sign that they do not really care about getting answers to their question(s). Or that they are just rude, "here is something that must be a question, figure out how to read it and then answer it, I have no time to loose following the obvious link to Writeup Formatting Tips". So why should we move the burden from them (to post properly) to the server (as the reload would increase its load)?

I haven't been a newby here in a while ;--) but really, is it that difficult to figure how to write a properly formated post? That's a real question BTW

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Re: Re: 'show as entered' option for poorly formatted posts.
by EvdB (Deacon) on Mar 04, 2004 at 14:23 UTC
    I would say that if you know nothing about HTML then formatting the post could be quite tricky. After all you came here to get an answer, not to get confused over HTML tags. Something as simple as using <p> tags to get line breaks is far from intuitive to a beginner.

    --tidiness is the memory loss of environmental mnemonics

      Oh, come on! This is 2004, who doesn't know about <p> and <br>? besides here is the first entry in Writeup Formatting Tips:

      Carriage returns are stripped
      All carriage returns are ignored in posts except within <CODE> sections. Use a <br> to get a line-break and a <p> tag to get a paragraph break.

      Maybe the entry about wrapping code in <code> tags could be moved up in the list, but still, I would expect anyone on this forum to be able to write a simple post.

        This is 2004, who doesn't know about <p> and <br>?
        Tons of people. Not everyone is interested in using HTML for markup. Hey, Perl is older than HTML, and there are still people who don't know anything about Perl. Or Unix.

        Abigail

Re: Re: 'show as entered' option for poorly formatted posts.
by fokat (Deacon) on Mar 05, 2004 at 02:23 UTC

    Today, as we write our followups, we get a nice chunk of HTML with <div>...</div> tags. What if <code>...</code> tags along with the phrase Add your code snippet here are added as well?

    I guess this would help with two things: The formatting of the post, and the posting of some piece of code to work with.

    Just my 2E-2...

    Best regards

    -lem, but some call me fokat