I know I used to double or triple post because I had a childish habit of clicking “submit” a lot when things went slow - like it would get you to pay more attention to me over here and speed me in. But lately I’ve been double posting when I seem to click only once. And it seems in the last few weeks I have seen a lot of double posts from others too.
It’s really a minor issue, but what might causes double posting other than going bananas with the submit button? Maybe entering some other key as well? Has there been a change in software that causes this? (I’m speaking from a standpoint of near computer illiteracy).
In a board as slow and overloaded as this one, when users don’t see their post quickly, they often submit it again. Meanwhile, their first submit is in the queue and eventually gets processed. Too late, since the second request is now also in the queue.
I’ve learned that even if I get the dreaded error message, the post probably went through, so I try preview next before punching submit again.
I also usually copy my post to the clipboard, or if long, store it in a temporary disk file just in case before hitting submit. There is a direct relationship between the length and complexity of a post and the likelihood of it getting lost.
It’s also quite possible to double-post without hitting Submit more than once. If you hit Submit, and you don’t get a reply or an error message after, say, three minutes, pick Stop on your browser. Somehow, it can get caught in limbo where it will continue to submit every five minutes or so. Once I picked Submit and went to take a shower. When I got back, it was still waiting for a response, so I picked Stop and discovered that it had quintuple-posted.