[wp-forums] Pastebins

[esmi at quirm dot net]

on 07/06/2012 14:24 Andrew Nacin said the following:
> It is really tough for me to help this poster because the code was removed.
> And since no comment was posted, he was not notified that the code was
> removed.
>
> There has been a CSS limit for some time on code blocks, forcing them to
> overflow into a scrollbar after X lines. That should in most cases be
> sufficient.

With all due respect, this has been thrashed to death and back on a 
couple of occasions over the past couple of years. If we post a followup 
about moderated code, we knock the poster out of the No Replies filter - 
which seems unfair given that s/he hasn't had a "real" reply.

As for the CSS limit, have you seen what happens when someone posts 
1000+ lines of code? Around the 2,500 line mark, we end up having to 
manually re-assemble the post because the editor can't cope. Now that's 
real fun!

Asking mods to pastebin code would impose too great a burden on those 
that do have access to a pastebin. It's also really not practical as 
many mods are accessing from work (where pastebins are blocked). Plus it 
wouldn't educate users at all. They would continue to post huge blocks 
of code and just let us clear up their mess. In comparison, having your 
code moderated is very effective way of getting the message across. 
Think "tough love". ;-)

All of this is made as clear as possible within the Forum Welcome 
message - even right down to how to use a pastebin.

As Chip said, what we really need is a coded solution to the problem 
that blocked code submissions over x lines.

Mel
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