Preview Button Considered Harmful (?) (5)

1 Name: Anonymous : 2010-07-29 04:03 ID:lVgk7FhO [Del]

The version of Shiichan that MrVacBob hacked together doesn't have a post preview feature, while boards based around Kareha do. Being able to check my posts for various formatting issues before I send them is pretty useful, I'll admit. When I find myself on /prog/ every now and then (not very often nowadays, I'll admit), I get a little anxious when posting, for fear of leaving a tag unclosed, nesting tags incorrectly, or forgetting the exact way that Shiichan's sometimes bizarre formatting conventions work. If I'm particularly serious about the effort I'm putting into a post, I'll even go as far as to test my work in an old thread (sageing, of course).

In a way, I think this lack of a preview feature might be a good thing, however. At the very least, it makes people stop and think about what they're posting before they post it, even if it's only for a second.

What does The Society think? Are preview buttons helpful or harmful? For that matter, do small barriers to posting have a positive or negative effect on post quality? For instance, captchas prevent spam, of course, but could they discourage people from making frivolous posts as well?

Most of what I'm saying shouldn't be taken very seriously, since the most important part of a community is not the software but the people that comprises it. I'm still curious to hear some opinions on this, however.

2 Name: Anonymous : 2010-07-29 07:09 ID:Heaven [Del]

There's a greasemonkey script to add post preview for shiichan.

Captchas are stupid.

3 Name: Anonymous : 2010-07-29 15:40 ID:Heaven [Del]

Features given to the users definitely impact some of the quality of the posting, but I think the Preview is a good thing, especially on those AA boards.

Shiichan is an old and deprecated software that was abandoned even by Shii himself. If it was still being developed I think he would've added it too. I personally don't think it's harmful and reduces the amount of erroneous posts, like you described.

4 Name: Mr VacBob!JqK7T7zan. : 2010-07-31 22:17 ID:r+B4AIZE [Del]

The only reason it doesn't have post preview is because I haven't written it yet. I definitely think it would be useful.

(the other problem - I don't know how many people browse with JS off so I don't know which of the JS or non-JS interface should have more design attention paid to it)

5 Name: Anonymous : 2010-08-01 06:57 ID:Heaven [Del]

>>4
So write the button with javascript like the GM script does, in that case if you have it turned off then it won't exist.

I think preview is a perfect example of a nonessential but useful and experience-enhancing feature that javascript was meant to provide. You're not crippled without it, but it sure does come in handy sometimes.

(You don't run some sort of analytics?)

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