# Hint To Avoid Being A Hamster Victim **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [February 24, 2004, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hint-to-avoid-being-a-hamster-victim/230937 "2004-02-24T18:18:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![CheekyMonkey613](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/e480ec/32.png) [@CheekyMonkey613](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CheekyMonkey613)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2004, 6:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hint-to-avoid-being-a-hamster-victim/230937/1 "2004-02-24T18:18:32Z")
So many times I’ve read posts saying: “ARGH! I just had a long response, but the hamsters ate it, and I don’t have the patience to re-type it. Basically, I was saying XYZ.” It’s unfortunate that we get a synopsis of XYZ instead of the long thought out relevant input. I’ve been a hamster victim myself. You finish up your post, press Submit, only for the boards to crash (or something equally disastrous), leading you to lose your post. I usually double check my thread, with the Preview. Once everything is pretty enough for me to “hand in”, I copy my whole text. I just highlight it all, and hit “copy”. This way, if it looks like we’re gonna have a problem, I go to Word, and hit “paste”. Sometimes you have time to copy your whole post when it looks like it won’t be going through. Most of the time, it does go through. But I’ve saved myself more than once with this precaution. I’m not usually the type to have one line replies, so my posts are quite time-consuming. It’s worth doing every time, even if it only saves you 10% of the time. Just trying to help out … (now… I must copy this in case the hamsters eat it for lunch… I am the master of my domain … I am the master of my domain … Oh crap! I’m just scared of hamsters!) 😃 ---
**Author:** ![gluteus\_maximus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f17d59/32.png) [@gluteus\_maximus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gluteus_maximus)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2004, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hint-to-avoid-being-a-hamster-victim/230937/2 "2004-02-24T19:35:56Z")
Good advice. If you’ve taken a long time to compose your post (coding, searching for cites and links, spellchecking, etc…) it’s a good idea to highlight everything and copy it even before you hit the ‘PREVIEW POST’ button. No need to paste into WORD, though. Everything you copied will be sitting in your clipboard, waiting for you to go back to the thread, hit ‘REPLY’ again, and then you can paste into the message field. ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2004, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hint-to-avoid-being-a-hamster-victim/230937/3 "2004-02-24T19:41:29Z")
> [@gluteus maximus](#): > > Everything you copied will be sitting in your clipboard, waiting for you to go back to the thread, hit ‘REPLY’ again, and then you can paste into the message field. This would be true if it wasn’t such a darned ingrained habit to use Copy & Paste. Just today, I had a post saved to the clipboard, until a friend on IM asked me for some info, which I dutifully copied and pasted. Whoops. ---
**Author:** ![rowrrbazzle](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rowrrbazzle/32/414_2.png) [@rowrrbazzle](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rowrrbazzle)\ **Post date:** [February 24, 2004, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hint-to-avoid-being-a-hamster-victim/230937/4 "2004-02-24T20:45:05Z")
I use IE, and I find that even after I hit submit, there’s usually still time to do the copy and paste if response is slow and I suspect I might get an error page. Of course, tough luck if the error page comes back immediately. ---
**Author:** ![Grousser](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/9d8465/32.png) [@Grousser](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grousser)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2004, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hint-to-avoid-being-a-hamster-victim/230937/5 "2004-02-25T02:18:13Z")
> [@Q.E.D.](#): > > This would be true if it wasn’t such a darned ingrained habit to use Copy & Paste. Just today, I had a post saved to the clipboard, until a friend on IM asked me for some info, which I dutifully copied and pasted. Whoops. I use WinM8 ([http://www.winm8.com](http://www.winm8.com)), a pretty useful program to save your “copy” actions and select it to paste them later. Very handy. ---
**Author:** ![Lobsang](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lobsang/32/4067_2.png) [@Lobsang](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lobsang)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2004, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hint-to-avoid-being-a-hamster-victim/230937/6 "2004-02-25T03:34:59Z")
> [@Q.E.D.](#): > > This would be true if it wasn’t such a darned ingrained habit to use Copy & Paste. Just today, I had a post saved to the clipboard, until a friend on IM asked me for some info, which I dutifully copied and pasted. Whoops. Which is why I dump my copy[ied post] _straight_ into notepad. ---
**Author:** ![Shalmanese](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shalmanese](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shalmanese)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2004, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hint-to-avoid-being-a-hamster-victim/230937/7 "2004-02-25T17:28:15Z")
Or you could use a decent browser that saves the text of your post when you press your back button so, if worst comes to worst, you merely have a double post rather than no post. ---
**Author:** ![AngelicGemma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/439d5e/32.png) [@AngelicGemma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AngelicGemma)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2004, 5:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hint-to-avoid-being-a-hamster-victim/230937/8 "2004-02-25T17:38:53Z")
Couldn’t you have posted this _last_ week? I had to learn the hard way. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Q.E.D](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/51bf81/32.png) [@Q.E.D](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Q.E.D)\ **Post date:** [February 26, 2004, 6:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hint-to-avoid-being-a-hamster-victim/230937/9 "2004-02-26T06:19:14Z")
> [@Grousser](#): > > I use WinM8 ([http://www.winm8.com](http://www.winm8.com)), a pretty useful program to save your “copy” actions and select it to paste them later. Very handy. Nice! ---
**Author:** ![EvilHamsterOnCrack](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/3ab097/32.png) [@EvilHamsterOnCrack](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilHamsterOnCrack)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2004, 4:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hint-to-avoid-being-a-hamster-victim/230937/10 "2004-03-28T04:30:39Z")
Can someone explain these “Hamsters” to me? ---
**Author:** ![Hoops](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hoops/32/6408_2.png) [@Hoops](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hoops)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2004, 7:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hint-to-avoid-being-a-hamster-victim/230937/11 "2004-03-28T07:37:26Z")
> [@EvilHamsterOnCrack](#): > > Can someone explain these “Hamsters” to me? I wonder if I’m being whooshed here, and you are not just punning on your handle there, **EvilHamsterOnCrack**. 🙂 But if not: It’s just a silly joke we have here at the SDMB that the servers are actually powered by hamsters running in their wheels. So if the board eats a post or is running slowly, we blame the hamsters. ---
**Author:** ![Shrinking\_Violet](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df705f/32.png) [@Shrinking\_Violet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shrinking_Violet)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2004, 11:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hint-to-avoid-being-a-hamster-victim/230937/12 "2004-03-28T11:24:15Z")
As well as copying your post to the clipboard before submitting … if you get a message from the hamsters thanking you for the snack 😉 _always_ preview before submitting again. I find that more often than not the post has gone through, anyway. ---
**Author:** ![GawnFishin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e9bcb4/32.png) [@GawnFishin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GawnFishin)\ **Post date:** [March 28, 2004, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hint-to-avoid-being-a-hamster-victim/230937/13 "2004-03-28T17:19:37Z")
> [@](#): > > Or you could use a decent browser that saves the text of your post when you press your back button so, if worst comes to worst, you merely have a double post rather than no post. I’ve got to agree entirely this is so easy and with tabs browsing you can also eliminate possible double posts, just so simple to do and nothing to worry about.