The integration with LessWrong means that anyone can still comment
Speaking of this, if I go to AF without being logged in, there’s a box at the bottom that says “New comment. Write here. Select text for formatting options… SUBMIT” But non-members can’t write comments right? Seems kinda misleading… Well I guess I just don’t know: What happens if a non-member (either LW-but-not-AF member or neither-AF-nor-LW member) writes a comment in the box and presses submit? (I guess I could do the experiment myself but I don’t want to create a test comment that someone then has to then go delete.)
To work around this (apparent?) issue, I was planning to start ending some of my AF posts (those where I expect significant non-AF readership) with a line like:
[Email me] (mailto link) or [comment on the lesswrong crosspost] (LW link)
I think this will work, but only if I obfuscate the LW link using bitly or whatever, because by default LW links are auto-converted to AF links when viewed on AF, right? I haven’t tried it yet.
(Sorry to shoehorn my general AF meta questions into this thread.)
Oops, yeah, this just seems like a straightforward bug. When you press “Submit” it asks you to log-in, and when you then log-in with a non-member account, the box just disappears and there is no obvious way to get your written content back. That seems like a terrible experience. I will fix that, I think we introduced this behavior when we made some changes on LW to how unsubmitted comments are saved.
Talking about general AIAF meta question, an option I’ve been considering for a while is to have a submission queue for AIAF non-members on the site, where they can submit posts to the AIAF directly, without going through LessWrong. The big concern here is that someone would have to review all of them, and also that I would want most of them to be rejected since they aren’t a good fit for the forum, and this seems more likely to make people unhappy than asking people to post to LW first.
I think the current setup is the better choice here, since I am worried the submission queue would cause a bunch of people to spend a lot of time writing posts, and then get told they won’t be accepted to the forum and that they wasted a lot of time, which is a much worse experience than being told very early that they should just post to LW and then ask for it being promoted (which I think sets better expectations). But I would be curious if people have different takes.
As a full-stack developer (a term which I kinda hate!) I just want to take this opportunity to mention to people who happen to read this that bug reports can be very helpful!
For any potential bug like Steven Byrnes mentions, there can be many people who experienced it but didn’t report it. With small teams of developers and complicated sites there can be many types of bugs that irritate many users but no one who can fix the bugs ends up finding out about the problem for a long time.
I know that in general bug reports can often feel like yelling into the void, but in my experience, they’re almost always getting considered by someone.
Thank you! Indeed, all bug reports are greatly appreciated! If you really ever notice anything that bothers you, just send a quick message on Intercom. We won’t always get around to fixing all bugs, but we use bug reports also as one of our primary prioritization tools, and this specific bug did just go unnoticed for a long time.
Speaking of this, if I go to AF without being logged in, there’s a box at the bottom that says “New comment. Write here. Select text for formatting options… SUBMIT” But non-members can’t write comments right? Seems kinda misleading… Well I guess I just don’t know: What happens if a non-member (either LW-but-not-AF member or neither-AF-nor-LW member) writes a comment in the box and presses submit? (I guess I could do the experiment myself but I don’t want to create a test comment that someone then has to then go delete.)
To work around this (apparent?) issue, I was planning to start ending some of my AF posts (those where I expect significant non-AF readership) with a line like:
I think this will work, but only if I obfuscate the LW link using bitly or whatever, because by default LW links are auto-converted to AF links when viewed on AF, right? I haven’t tried it yet.
(Sorry to shoehorn my general AF meta questions into this thread.)
Oops, yeah, this just seems like a straightforward bug. When you press “Submit” it asks you to log-in, and when you then log-in with a non-member account, the box just disappears and there is no obvious way to get your written content back. That seems like a terrible experience. I will fix that, I think we introduced this behavior when we made some changes on LW to how unsubmitted comments are saved.
Talking about general AIAF meta question, an option I’ve been considering for a while is to have a submission queue for AIAF non-members on the site, where they can submit posts to the AIAF directly, without going through LessWrong. The big concern here is that someone would have to review all of them, and also that I would want most of them to be rejected since they aren’t a good fit for the forum, and this seems more likely to make people unhappy than asking people to post to LW first.
I think the current setup is the better choice here, since I am worried the submission queue would cause a bunch of people to spend a lot of time writing posts, and then get told they won’t be accepted to the forum and that they wasted a lot of time, which is a much worse experience than being told very early that they should just post to LW and then ask for it being promoted (which I think sets better expectations). But I would be curious if people have different takes.
As a full-stack developer (a term which I kinda hate!) I just want to take this opportunity to mention to people who happen to read this that bug reports can be very helpful!
For any potential bug like Steven Byrnes mentions, there can be many people who experienced it but didn’t report it. With small teams of developers and complicated sites there can be many types of bugs that irritate many users but no one who can fix the bugs ends up finding out about the problem for a long time.
I know that in general bug reports can often feel like yelling into the void, but in my experience, they’re almost always getting considered by someone.
Thank you! Indeed, all bug reports are greatly appreciated! If you really ever notice anything that bothers you, just send a quick message on Intercom. We won’t always get around to fixing all bugs, but we use bug reports also as one of our primary prioritization tools, and this specific bug did just go unnoticed for a long time.