Trust the CGI--post *only* once, please

Great Debates
1

[Moderator Hat ON]

Look, I know the board is having a lot of problems with going slow and timing out when you try to post, but the sheer number of multi-posts is getting extreme. If you think posting is slow, just try the glacially-slow interface for deleting these pesky little buggers sometime. I am quite literally spending over an hour a day just deleting extra posts. As a general rule, as soon as you hit “submit”, your post is in the database. Do not hit the submit button twice.

If the page times out…your post went through.

If it cannot find the server…your post went through.

If you hit “submit” and then hit “stop”…your post went through.

If you cannot see your post on the thread…it’s almost certainly there anyhow.

If you hit “submit”, notice a typo one picosecond later and hit “stop”, correct the typo and hit “submit” again…you just double-posted.

If you think it isn’t going fast enough and hit “submit” a few more times…you just multi-posted.

If you are concerned that a post didn’t go through after you hit submit once, C&P your post and save it somewhere; if your post hasn’t showed in a couple hours or there are posts showing up after yours was submitted, but yours still has not…resubmit it ONCE. If you happen to notice the post count on a thread before you post and it has incremeted by one after a seemingly failed attempt to post…relax. Your post has gone through, and it will show up eventually.

There are some plans afoot that hopefully will speed up the board and prevent the “timing out” and invisible post problems. Until that happens, though, please try to help us mods out and take extra precautions agains multi-posts.

On a less moderate note, there are 11 copies of a single post in one thread, as well as several other multis. Remember what I said about feeding the next person who multiposted to the vampire slugs? Well, all I can say is some of you guys better start stuffing your pockets with garlic salt…

[Moderator Hat OFF]

2

“If you hit “submit”, notice a typo one picosecond later and hit “stop”, correct the typo and hit “submit” again…you just double-posted.”
Really? I’ve done it without ending up with a double post. Although I’ve also done it ending up with with a double post, so i don’t recommend it.

How can you say that if we press “submit”, our message a has definitely, 100%, absolutely gone through? Is this MB using a special version of the Internet that is 100% reliable? I realize that I don’t know much about the Internet, but it seems to me that if I press “submit”, and I recieve the message “server could not be found”, then my post probably hasn’t gone through. How can you give a message to a server if you can’t even find the server? And remember, it is rather annoying to post a response, only to find out a few days later that it didn’t go through and now the thread has moved on frtom that point.

3

Well, gee, I’ve now noticed several typos in my message. Better press that “stop” button really fast, then post a new version… Just kidding.
Okay, so this time my post went through even though I pressed “stop”, but I know that there have been times when my posts haven’t. Have you changed the CGI at all?
Here’s what I assume is happening: Someone sends a message to your server. Your server is supposed to send notification to the poster’s compter’s browser stating that you have received the message. While the trip from user to server is successful, the trip back i not, and so another message is sent. Is this correct? And is there a way to detect when the return trip is not sucessful, and not accept posts from a user that isn’t receiving return messages (perhaps included with the “We recieved your message” message should be a “Hey, browser! If your user tries to post again, send this verification number along with the post, so we know you still hear us.” message?)

Is there any way to program your server not to accept any post from

4

I thought that once too, and ended up double-posting (my only time). I have gotten a ton of “server not found” errors, and only once has my post actually not gone through. The submit button, in my experience, has worked 99.5% of the time; just give it a chance and take a little more in the way of precautions to avoid multiposts.

[Now, back to cleaning up the Creationism thread, that I started on at, Ye Gods Above, 4:20 PM.]

5

I still don’t understand.

How many times are we supposed to hit the submit button?

6

Heres what I do. If a post is taking seemingly forever, I just open a new browser window and return to the MB, and see if it is there. Most times it is. on a related note: Gaudere, Why is it that 1 time I hit submit 1( one ) time( I swear! ) and wound up with a triple post? You cleaned it up, so now my apology makes no sense! :slight_smile:

Cecil said it. I believe it. That settles it.

7

I disagree! Yer all a buncha liberal, socialist tree-huggers!

8

I don’t know. This is a Bad Thing, but I still think a lot of the multi-posts are from multiple "submit"s. As a side note, if you email me with the URL of the page that you apologized in, I can delete the apology since it’s non-applicable now.

9

OK, how about this:

At 4:10 PM Eastern time I hit “Submit Reply” after composing a reply in the “Creationists Strut Your Stuff” thread.

Around 4:14 I got a “The server returned a file with no content” message.

At 4:30 I cleared my browser’s cache and opened the sixth page of that thread. My mesage was not there. I reloaded the page. Still not there.

At 4:31 I hit “Submit Reply” again.

At 4:34 I got a “The server returned a file with no content” message.

I exited my browser, opened it again, cleared the disk cache, and reloaded the sixth page of that thread. Guess what.

It’s now 4:52. I just relaoded the page. No message.

There’s a problem.

jrf

10

And the posting of the previous reply was a tad slow, but went normally.

jrf

11

…And there’s a double post in that thread now. Vampire slugs…hungry, drooling, slimy vampire slugs.

Quite often, a post will not show for hours…you’ll see that the “post count” is going up, but nothing after, say, 2PM, even though people are clearly posting to it. So they take the board down to fix it. After it’s back up, the old posts still won’t show until somebody posts again to the thread, which is why you sometimes see mods pop in with a blank or “test” post. Even if your post does not show up immediately, be very, very reticent to post again; the board is quite possibly not showing any new posts. (And it’s probably not a problem on your end, so clearing your disk cache won’t help)

12

Another thing I learned:

You hit Submit Reply and that “Thanks for posting” page appears (though it’s sometimes S-L-O-W in appearing :)), and it’s supposed to have a Chicago Reader ad at the top.

Sometimes that space is blank (the ad is taking longer to download than the text). You don’t have to wait for that ad to appear. Click on STOP and the thread you just posted on should appear sooner than if you had waited for the ad to arrive.

When all else fails, ask Cecil.

13

I’ve not found this to be entirely true. I’ve been getting a lot of time outs lately. At first, like a dope (NPI), I was just resubmitting, which resulted in a multi post on one occasion. Then I decided that I didn’t need to do that, but lost a few postings. Now, when I get a time out, I recheck the thread first, before resubmitting.

I know this is contrary to your advice, but I’ve done it about 5 times now without a single repost.
BTW, for a form that I have on my site, I borrowed from the following javascript to insure that users don’t pound on the SUBMIT button unnecessarily:

http://javascript.internet.com/forms/submit-once.html

I don’t know your specifics, but maybe it would help, at least for the majority of people who’s browsers support javascript.

14

The problem with checking the thread, JoeyBlades, is that when the board acts up we have these periods of time during which new posts don’t show. So people keep posting since they don’t see their post (and perhaps their request times out as well) and once the board’s working properly again, boom, I’ve got half-a-dozen triple posts to clean up. I would strongly advise that even when the page times out, that you assume your post went through unless people have posts showing up after yours was submitted. Otherwise, I’d suspect the board is just not showing new posts again, and your post went through. The best way to tell if a post made it is to keep an eye on the “post count” and see if it incremented, or if the thread gets bumped to the top after a supposedly “failed” attempt to post.

15

I discovered the hard way sometimes you have to be really really really patient - I once waited almost an entire day, still didn’t see my post, posted it again… and like the 11 copies I’d posted the day before all appeared at once.

Needless to say, I owe Lynn some chocolate. :slight_smile:

Esprix

Ask the Gay Guy!

16

Im with dave. Open a SECOND [often referred to as ‘new’] browser window when you FIRST come to the board. Make that window small.
(Netscape or IE: FILE: NEW: Window)

Now if you hit ‘submit’ & its taking a long time, make that browswer window small, open the other window & read the messages you want in the second window & you can let the first one take as much time as you want.

This works folks, honest it does. How do you think I got such a high post count? Because I do this when necessary & I don’t get upset that it takes longer for a post to process…

17

Speaking as an experienced computer programmer, these types of problems show inexcusable slackness on the part of the UBB developers. I could write better software with one lobe of my brain tied behind my hippocampus.

Against stupidity the very gods / Themselves contend in vain.

18

Boards looks like it might be headed for a crash. Help out your mods: only YOU can prevent multiposts!

19

Don’t make us call out Smokey!

20

Yeah, I once didn’t see my post for 2 days. Then it showed up. All eight times I’d hit submit. tucks tail between legs

So if any moderator who cleaned up my posts comes into Louisville, I owe you dinner or something.

Your Quadell