# How long to post vs update?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-to-post-vs-update/369059>\
**Category:** About This Message Board\
**Created:** [August 17, 2006, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-to-post-vs-update/369059 "2006-08-17T06:17:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 6:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-to-post-vs-update/369059/1 "2006-08-17T06:17:35Z")

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Maybe not a clear title. Does anyone know the relative times (under good conditions) for a post to be entered in the db vs the poster seeing it updated? I ask because I hit reply just now, decided to add something while waiting for the updating, and, upon preview, saw the post was there already. (I then backed out of it.)

My experience is that posts get entered much faster than updates, and for 90% of my timeouts the post got made successfully. I’m not quite sure why this should take so long, though.

Sorry for another picky programmer’s question. And the right one is faster, IMHO.

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**Author:** ![FatBaldGuy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ecd19e/32.png) [@FatBaldGuy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FatBaldGuy)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-to-post-vs-update/369059/2 "2006-08-17T13:21:19Z")

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Generally speaking, when you hit the “Submit Reply” button, your post is updated almost instantaneously. The delay is in getting the response back to you. That’s why we see so many double posts, because people don’t get a response back and think nothing has happened, so the hit Submit again.

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**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 1:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-to-post-vs-update/369059/3 "2006-08-17T13:46:28Z")

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[QUOTE=FatBaldGuy]  
Generally speaking, when you hit the “Submit Reply” button, your post is updated almost instantaneously. The delay is in getting the response back to you. That’s why we see so many double posts, because people don’t get a response back and think nothing has happened, so the hit Submit again.  
[/QUOTE]

It may be time-consuming, but if you’re in doubt about whether something has been entered or not after you hit “submit” and things are slow enough that you’re tempted to hit “submit” again, open a separate instance of your browser in another window and go back into SDMB and look at the thread to see its actual last post. I’ve done this any number of times to avoid double-posting. It is a slow process but less embarrassing.

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**Author:** ![Winston\_Smith](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e95f7d/32.png) [@Winston\_Smith](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Winston_Smith)\
**Post date:** [August 17, 2006, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-to-post-vs-update/369059/4 "2006-08-17T18:35:51Z")

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Every time you ask a picky programmer’s question, god kills a kitten. Just sayin’.

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**Author:** ![Johanna](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johanna/32/8318_2.png) [@Johanna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johanna)\
**Post date:** [August 19, 2006, 1:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-long-to-post-vs-update/369059/5 "2006-08-19T01:56:41Z")

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So the intake works better than the output?