Enforced preview, please?

February 23, 2007 12:42 PM

For my own sake, what about enforced preview when posting? In the absence of the ability to edit posts, post-post, forcing the preview stage would probably save me some embarassment. Maybe it could even be a user-configurable option.
posted by mzurer to Feature Requests at 12:42 PM (35 comments total)

Uh, there is a forced preview. It's there, right below the place where you type? It's a dark square? It says "Live Preview"? Right above the "Post comment" button?
posted by Plutor at 12:56 PM on February 23, 2007

Unless you mean posts, not comments, in which case it already seems like the blue, grey, and green all make you go through a preview before being able to post.
posted by Plutor at 12:57 PM on February 23, 2007

Sorry, I actually did not mean to post that yet. I mean for comments, not posts.
posted by mzurer at 12:58 PM on February 23, 2007

And yes, live preview should take care of that, but I am apparently enough of a bonehead that it does not.
posted by mzurer at 12:59 PM on February 23, 2007

what about enforced preview when posting?

I hate the forced preview on Metachat with a passion. I loathe it. If it were to show up here as an opt-in per-user option, sure, whatever, but we're moving into threats-of-bodily-harm territory otherwise.
posted by cortex at 1:05 PM on February 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

And yes, live preview should take care of that, but I am apparently enough of a bonehead that it does not.

MetaFilter is not here to protect you from your own boneheadedness. This Is Not a Valid Pony.
posted by languagehat at 1:08 PM on February 23, 2007 [1 favorite]

Press the preview button at the bottom of any comment thread. Don't press the post one. Problem solved.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 1:11 PM on February 23, 2007 [2 favorites]

"I have no self-control, so I want someone else to make more difficult the behavior in myself that I dislike."

This is why we have anti-sodomy laws.
posted by dmd at 1:13 PM on February 23, 2007

I'm about to go get some lunch from the cafeteria here at work. It will be very, very bad. Please stop me!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:13 PM on February 23, 2007

Remember the days of forced Preview? I hated those days.
posted by OmieWise at 1:19 PM on February 23, 2007

Well, I'd say it is more analagous to why most diets fail, but that's just me... Time to try some greasemonkey, I suppose.
posted by mzurer at 1:19 PM on February 23, 2007

The Monkey Grease Diet did jack shit for me, but hey, if it works for you....
posted by nebulawindphone at 1:21 PM on February 23, 2007

hate the forced preview on Metachat with a passion. I loathe it.

Seconded. I can't stand that crap.
posted by Rhomboid at 1:25 PM on February 23, 2007

Wow. Somebody did in fact stop me. There was a much longer line to place my order than is usual for this time of day on a Friday, and someone ahead of me in line had nausea-inducing BO. Now I'm on my way to a restaurant to get some grade-a, stank-free monkey grease. Thanx, MetaFilter!!! Yur mi digestiv hero!!!
posted by It's Raining Florence Henderson at 1:26 PM on February 23, 2007

And yes, live preview should take care of that, but I am apparently enough of a bonehead that it does not.

And this is why a forced preview wouldn't be all that useful either. In an ideal world, we'd be able to re-edit our comments for a short period of time, but Matt has repeatedly vetoed that idea. The best solution is to just grin and bear it. Anyone who has participated on the site for a decent amount of time has made mistakes -- from simple typos, to sphincter-clenching tragi-gaffes. It's not that important in the long run. Re-reply if you must, or send Jessamyn an IM if it really really bothers you.In the long view of things, each and every drop of water that flows over Niagara Falls does not need to be perfectly formed.
posted by Dave Faris at 1:27 PM on February 23, 2007

"The best solution is to just grin and bear it."

I think it's better to grin and bare it, but I'm a huge perv.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 1:33 PM on February 23, 2007

Who let the furry in?
posted by dmd at 1:44 PM on February 23, 2007

I am for flying without a net. Makes it a little more exciting everytime I hit the button without first
posted by JohnnyGunn at 1:44 PM on February 23, 2007 [2 favorites]

previewing.
posted by JohnnyGunn at 1:44 PM on February 23, 2007 [2 favorites]

cortex writes "I hate the forced preview on Metachat with a passion. "

I've gotten used to this behaviour, it's the verifier marking upper case tags as invalid that drives me batty. Please Matt, don't bring that feature here either.
posted by Mitheral at 1:54 PM on February 23, 2007

I think it's better when crash grins and bares it as well.
posted by Kwine at 2:02 PM on February 23, 2007

Sphincter-clinching tragi-gaffes are the best teacher.
posted by owhydididoit at 2:10 PM on February 23, 2007

jkbSSdf dfbg the fucking ider that asd should
posted by freebird at 2:51 PM on February 23, 2007

Previews are a waste.
posted by freebird at 2:53 PM on February 23, 2007

Enforced spell check would rid you of embarassment.
posted by weapons-grade pandemonium at 4:42 PM on February 23, 2007

mzurer asked, got his reply from matt, came up with a valid alternative that works for him. Solved.

I hear Flameouts-R-Us is having a half-price sale on pitchforks and torches.

Hope the closing on the house went well, mzurer!
posted by terrapin at 5:20 PM on February 23, 2007

I hear Flameouts-R-Us is having a half-price sale on pitchforks and torches.

Seriously, how cool would it be if we had a 'flameout' category for MetaTalk posts?
posted by philomathoholic at 10:51 PM on February 23, 2007

Sphincter-clinching tragi-gaffes are the best teacher.

This is so very true; I had one of these once, and I was so mortified that I didn't even visit MetaFilter for a few months. MONTHS!
posted by davejay at 10:56 PM on February 23, 2007

There's a Greasemonkey script that swaps the Post and Preview buttons around, so I'm guessing it wouldn't be too hard to make the Post button disappear altogether, leaving you with a forced preview.
posted by jack_mo at 3:46 AM on February 24, 2007

I could make a Greasemonkey script that gets rid of the post and preview buttons. All you need to do is get your enemies to install it: the roundabout man's killfile!
posted by Plutor at 4:04 AM on February 24, 2007

They have enforced preview over on SpoFi. If that feature helps to minimize thoughtless, idiotic or otherwise poorly composed comments, I frankly can't tell.
posted by psmealey at 7:42 AM on February 24, 2007

On a related note, one that I was thinking of opening up a new MeTa thread regarding, is there a non-live version of the comment box? What I mean is a place where I can check all my markup to make sure it looks right and works correctly without actually having a post button?

I'm thinking this would be useful for making front page posts where the initial post is only a sentence or two, and the bulk of the information is the first comment. It would be nice to have a place to compose that first comment without having to worry about botching a link because of rushing to make certain no one posts between the the short FPP and the meatier comment that follows.

Does something like that already exist?
posted by quin at 2:12 PM on February 24, 2007

quin, I actually use a random other thread for this sort of thing. God help me if I ever hit Post by accident, but other than that it works great.
posted by cortex at 2:32 PM on February 24, 2007

cortex, that is exactly what I do as well. But when I put up my last post it occurred to me how stupid I'd feel if I had hit that button automatically. That's when I started wondering if there was another way.
posted by quin at 3:49 PM on February 24, 2007

Can gets we a grammar checker?
posted by blue_beetle at 9:21 AM on February 25, 2007