Blank posts

This happens when you type in something in the "Title" section and then hit Enter with the cursor still in the "Title" box.  Sometimes this is an error, other times it is to arouse suspense.  People need to be aware that, if someone does this and then it takes a while to fix the problem, it will appear to be a prank.  Also, even if the problem is fixed, the top post will usually still be blank and the first several replies will be about the blank post.  This can happen even if someone successfully edits the post.

There are a few things that could be done to fix this problem.  On JWS, if you attempt to leave a blank message body, instead of posting, you get an error message explaining that the body cannot be left blank.  This has prevented me from accidentally posting a few blank posts on that site.  Another possible solution would be to make someone confirm that a blank post is desired before allowing it--that way, if they are doing it for a reason, they can still do it but it will eliminate 99% of the mistakes.  Or, as some people have been having trouble editing on this board, someone can have a look at the editing function to see if it can be made more compatible with the common browsers (or, if people are simply not doing it right, it can be explained under Announcements how to properly edit a post).

Thanks - a mystery has been solved.

Maybe posters should pay more attention to what they are doing.

Warlock 

Just checking. I did not get an error message.

Jeff

I'm not sure what forum software this site is running on, and I'm not sure why we are using it.  There are some great free forum toolkits out now that are very mature, nearly bug-free, and much more feature rich.  phpBB3 in particular comes to mind as well developed and reguarly improved/maintained.

I suppose it's probably an issue of losing all existing posts in the process or something (though many importers exist for phpbb3). 

Just seems akward that such a large site is run on software that very frequently generates java errors, few features are particuarly polished, and many features (like uploading an avatar image) are forever missing.

If Simon would like some help improving the site, give me a hollar - I've done a lot of professional web development, and run around 7 websites.  I've even written my own forum software like this one.

- Lime

I wonder if there is a hangover with difficulties related to Firefox?

After I made a post using Firefox (which I was unable to do with the previous iteration of JWD), people complained they could not access subsequent posts).

So I have reverted to accessing JWN with IE, against my better judgement.

Doug

Using Chrome.

Occasionally a blank gets posted without me doing anything to prompt it.

It has happened several times.  I have no idea what is causing it.

Cheers

Chris