I wonder how difficult it would be to add a “Rot13 this” button to the options under each text item (that is, next to “Vote up” and “Vote down” and so forth).
That would significantly reduce the nuisance factor associated with reading r13′d posts, without the site having to give up whatever value it is people see in using them.
Not that I’m offering to write the code, or anything actually useful like that. Just ruminating.
Yes, of course there would be such a thing, and I ought to have looked for it rather than proposing that the feature be built into the site itself. Clearly, my intuitions have been distorted by working on self-contained rather then Web apps for too many years.
If we are going automate this, we should just use spoiler tags, so the marked text can be revealed on highlighting, or when a button is clicked or whatever.
That’s much too much work, and it’ll be pretty bad for the website. It’ll require another database query for every post on every thread (which means the site will be slower and more expensive), but it’ll only be used on, what? The Harry Potter threads and the occasional brainteaser?
Textbook example of overkill.
EDIT: I misunderstood the request. I stand by it being overkill, though.
How would this be done client side? Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the request, but to me it sounded like he wanted to have an option to vote to rot13 posts that you think are spoilers.
Edit: To clarify, the reason I think that’s what he meant is that he said it should appear next to the vote up/vote down buttons. Those only appear after you post. I suppose you could still have a client-side rot13 button down there, but it’d be a bit useless.
It was earlier pointed out to me that the same goal can be achieved already (and without any changes to database interaction) by means of a browser plugin, which is a superior approach all around and makes this whole thread moot. So, yes, agreed that it was a lousy idea in the first place.
I wonder how difficult it would be to add a “Rot13 this” button to the options under each text item (that is, next to “Vote up” and “Vote down” and so forth).
That would significantly reduce the nuisance factor associated with reading r13′d posts, without the site having to give up whatever value it is people see in using them.
Not that I’m offering to write the code, or anything actually useful like that. Just ruminating.
This is not an endorsement of the add-on , but if you use Firefox
/dave feels sheepish/
Yes, of course there would be such a thing, and I ought to have looked for it rather than proposing that the feature be built into the site itself. Clearly, my intuitions have been distorted by working on self-contained rather then Web apps for too many years.
Thanks for both the thought and the pointer.
If we are going automate this, we should just use spoiler tags, so the marked text can be revealed on highlighting, or when a button is clicked or whatever.
That’s much too much work, and it’ll be pretty bad for the website. It’ll require another database query for every post on every thread (which means the site will be slower and more expensive), but it’ll only be used on, what? The Harry Potter threads and the occasional brainteaser?
Textbook example of overkill.
EDIT: I misunderstood the request. I stand by it being overkill, though.
Whence the extra database queries? Presumably it could all be done on the client side in JavaScript.
I agree that it would be overkill to have it on every comment, though.
How would this be done client side? Perhaps I’m misunderstanding the request, but to me it sounded like he wanted to have an option to vote to rot13 posts that you think are spoilers.
Edit: To clarify, the reason I think that’s what he meant is that he said it should appear next to the vote up/vote down buttons. Those only appear after you post. I suppose you could still have a client-side rot13 button down there, but it’d be a bit useless.
You would use the button to un-rot13 spoilers that the poster had already rot13-ed. It would be for the convenience of the reader only.
The Firefox add-on is even better if it can rot13 inside TEXTAREAs, which is a convenience for the writer as well.
QuickROT sort of works inside text fields. Select, rightclick, QR, copy to clipboard, paste (your text has stayed selected).
The drawback is that QuickRot won’t appear for the same text more than once, even if it’s in a different text field in a different tab.
It was earlier pointed out to me that the same goal can be achieved already (and without any changes to database interaction) by means of a browser plugin, which is a superior approach all around and makes this whole thread moot. So, yes, agreed that it was a lousy idea in the first place.