200 character limit

[Bert]

I just spent ages writing an answer to a question, clicked 'submit' and went straight on to something else. When I went to see if there were any further comments, I found that my answer was not there. So I reproduced my answer as well as i could remember it, clicked 'submit' and noticed a message at the top of the page saying my answer was too long and that there was a 2000 charcter limit. Why on earth can this not be made clear at the ooutset? Many comments boxes tell you how many characters you have left as you type. Why can't AB do this? Fortunately, most of my original message was copied and pasted from another site, which is why it was over 2000 characters.

[Clanad]

Can't help you as to why... but if it happens again, go back to the question and click "Post an Answer" yet again. Your original post will come back up intact... then simply scroll about half way through your post, highlight the last half and click "cut" in the Edit selection. Send the remaining half and then click yet again, on "Post an Answer" and paste your remainder. Unless, of course, you have exited the site... won't work then.
Ed has been reminded time and again about notifying the poster about reaching the limit, but so far of no avail...

[Ankou]

it used to flag up a 2000 warning preventing you from posting when you tried to submit so that you had to trim it down or cut and paste as suggested. why it can't do that now i'll never know.

[dothawkes31]

This has happened to me a few times in the genealigy topic, there is no warning and no word count and so it is very annoying. Especially as it is 200 characters, which isn't much, actually I think it is more than that but can't remember what it is, maybe you should remail the techies and request some kind of warning/alert like there used to be, it used to be that the post was suspended on the screen with an alert and the count, then you could cut and paste a second reply, asl Buenchico actually , he is famous for that!!!

[Mr Veritas]

Hello Bert,
I couldn't agree more.
On the old AB (as Ankou says) it used to warn you (when you tried to submit an answer) that you were over the limit.
On new AB this seems to have disappeared(sadly).
What would be nice is a system like YouTube,where the number of characters you have left appears at the bottom and shrinks as you type further.
As Clanad says,AB Ed has had this drwn to their attention but (like so much else since New AB started) nothing seems to get rectified.
No doubt AB Ed will say "it's in hand" but all these things that need doing seem to slip through their fingers!

[jno]

Unfair, Mr V. They've done quite a bit. Note how there is now a Post an Answer tab at the bottom of the page as well as the top, and how you can now view all topics at once. Both are new. They've been busy little bees.

[swedeheart]

Agree with jno things are getting done. Not necessarily in the right order, though... preview seems basic and we still have to do without. But it's not a standstill so that's good. Mr Veritas that YouTube facility seems brilliant. Eds? Please?

[AB Editor]

We're trying our best everyone! There are technical constraints which are slowly being overcome.

Currently the tech team are making improvements on the administration side of the site. This should allow us to deal with some problems more directly.

We will get there in the end.

All the best,

Spare Ed

[bigbrain_biggerego99]

Also, how could you type an answer so big? Surely you don't think people would actually take time out to read it (And not get bored of it).
If you were to type a question, you would get bored waiting. Then the 2000-character answer would all be in vain...