Um. That was really nasty. I just wrote an answer for a question on Stack Overflow, complete with JavaScript code. When I submitted it, I received a "down for maintenance" screen. When I hit the back button on my browser, my answer was gone. I had a little bit of my post on the clipboard, but.. Come on. Really?
Could SO please do something other than just eat my answer? Could it at least dump the contents of the posted form so I can scrape my post back out and not lose the work I put in?
Gosh.
Update(s):
I've done the clipboard copy thing before, but it is a big hassle. I really detest having to take that extra step all the time. Can't anything be done? Maybe:
Save the post periodically using AJAX, and if abandoned, show it in a "drafts" area on the user's page. If the save function fails put up a small flag notification on the web page so I know I need to copy the post and save my work. There's no need to go all the way to formal draft management: merely keeping the current post available is all that's necessary.
Set up an alternate "postback" server during maintenance so requests aren't lost but get echoed back to the client with instructions to try again in a bit.
Submit questions and answers via AJAX. If the request fails, leave the page up with a message to try again later. If successful, only then load the resultant page or merge the page changes to the current page. This seems like the least amount of effort and quite effective.
[status-deferred]
-land. See this question about drafts. – Pops Sep 23 '10 at 14:36