in reply to Formatting Tips

I must admit i had my difficulties with formatting here at the beginning too, i did some html long ago but someone who is totally new might find it difficult: and to be honest i dont read all manuals on a new site, people might be eager to post and get their burning questions answered ...

Maybe it would be fine to just present a "preformatted new message box" which reads something like:

<p> "Write your text here, the "p" tags keep some general formatting on it, you might want to use <br>
(for new lines) or "code" or "c" tags for sample code:
<c> Write your code here </c>
see Writeup Formatting Tips for more information <p> And Please dont forget to use the "preview" button



This box could only be presented to users which did not already have changed their personal nodelets, e.g. use a signature?
Just my 2 ct.
hth
MH

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Re^2: Formatting Tips
by Corion (Patriarch) on Feb 18, 2009 at 10:10 UTC

    We've tried that for signatures and it ended with people putting the whole post into the signatures. So this would end in people posting the template and slapping their content below the template, which I consider worse than people just slapping their content into a node :)

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[d/l]

      Ok. Didnt know you already tried it, for me this would have been fine,
      but you are right, there are always some people out there who will never read any manuals/tips (even if you give them a really huge warning sign in front of their face) in my job as a sysadmin i face these people, luckily this is not the majority ;-). But i think the situation like "it is now" is also not perfect, so why dont try it again, and let those that ignore all rules face the consequences,

      I fully agree with ELISHEVA the information should be short, pregnant not more than 5 lines.

      Maybe it could even be possible to remove the (unchanged) "template text" automatically for those who just post below it, or let it be there and let the community "solve the problem" (some might send personal messages for those that never listen) ;-)?
      btw:
      Personally i did not read through all the writeup tips, e.g.and it took me around 2 hours iirc before i got my first posts written, and formatted right (with links to other ids, read through all the tips on formatting, posting ...), that is too long, or maybe i am too silly and other new users do it in 5 min ....
      I know this is a difficult task and there are always some drawbacks, no solution is perfect ...

      MH
[reply]

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