Often it happens that while you are answering a node, someone else is also in the same process and has answered before you hit the submit button. If possible, it would be a good idea to have it mentioned some way before you hit submit. So when you preview, if an answer has been submitted in 'last x number of minutes' or 'since you click the reply button', it will show up as a link. You can read that and may modify your answer in the light of what is already posted.

It could be a good idea from the content perspective. It may not be such a good idea from sheer enthusiasm perspective which keeps site alive by encouraging the active participation.

artist

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Last Reply Time on Preview Page
by chromatic (Archbishop) on Jul 22, 2003 at 03:15 UTC

    Both parts of this feature are already possible with the existing system. You can already modify a reply after it's been posted. If you really truly need to see if someone's sneaked in a reply before you, keep a copy of the question in a separate tab or window and reload it right before you submit.

    Better yet, take a deep breath, go for a walk, and repeat to yourself "It's not a race. I'm still a good person even if someone else posted the same answer a minute before me. I'm a beautiful and delicate snowflake."

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      Damn. I was going to say that! :)

      cLive ;-)

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      >>Better yet, take a deep breath, go for a walk, and repeat to yourself "It's not a race. I'm still a good person even if someone else posted the same answer a minute before me. I'm a beautiful and delicate snowflake."

      I think your totally missing his point. I don't think the original poster was referring to a race to be the first reply to a question at all. Of course it doesn't matter in the over all scheme whether two people post the same reply to a question. But if we look at it like that, what does matter? Everyone dies after all. But thats ranging rather farther afield then I had meant to go, so back to the original point. The point is that a system like he was proposing would simply help increase the signal to noise ration, which is admittedly already very good, but improvements are always good.
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        I think we're looking at this from a completely different mindset. I don't understand how the proposal would improve the signal to noise ratio. If two replies to the same question provide the same answer, is the first one automatically signal and the second one automatically noise?

        If you take that argument further, asking a question that's already been answered is noise. I'm comfortable thinking that, within reason — we do have FAQs for a reason — but it's very easy to take it too far.

        Is there something wrong with having two similar answers appear within a few minutes of each other? I think not, and that's why I don't see why this idea would be useful.

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Re: Last Reply Time on Preview Page
by chunlou (Curate) on Jul 23, 2003 at 05:26 UTC

    Funny it happened to me with Shorten script. There were two replies at first. Yada, yada, by the time I posted BrowserUk already posted a better answer--worse still similar to mine, which made me look like a plagiarizer :) (sometimes you read something and reply hours later).

    Anyway. As for the "reply status" feature, if someone wants it to be more or less real time, at least two possible ways to do it.

    One. Have a "hidden" frame on the page (i.e. a frame with zero height) which periodically requests the reply status and via javascript refreshes the reply status on the visible frame (on an input box for example).

    But that requires a major rewrite of the PM script since it's not using frame.

    Another more plugin approach could be using Java applet. Passive periodic querying the server. Or using callback having the server notifies the applet the reply status (just like IM). But callback may not be allowed on the client side (as a security measure).

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