Those of us who have been using SO (or any SE site for that matter) for a while know that the box where we type our text is not identical to what is posted (because of various markdown capabilities we are given). We also know that there is a display below the text box that shows us what our post will actually look like once we are done, and we know how to format thing the way we would like them to look.
I've noticed a trend where a user will format things nicely (or somewhat nicely) as plaintext where they type, and ignore the fact that it is not at all formatted like that in the actual post (despite the fact that it is displayed, live, directly below where they are typing). Lists that are meant to span several lines appear as a single string across one line running onto several, code is partially code-formatted, etc...
I suggest that new users and users with many third-party edits (corrections by more experienced users), be prseented with a confirmation dialog when posting confirming that they have, in fact, checked out how their post will actually appear once posted, and that it is accurate. To address concerns regarding reduced conversions, a possible solution would be to bypass the dialog for absolute first posts, since those will be in First Post review queue anyway.
This will:
- Make it easier for everyone to read
- Reduce the amount of editing we have to do to make things readable
- Make it easier to take new, serious posters seriously, as their questions won't look lazy and effortless due to lack of formatting.
Mock up of dialog to be displayed:
Possible criteria for whether to display dialog:
if posts == 0:
False
if posts < 5: # questions AND answers
True
if third_party_edits / posts > .3: # 30% "fixed" by others
True